VfL Bochum continues to struggle against its direct rivals in the bottom of the Bundesliga table. Now bigger calibers are coming again – fortunately?

After recent successful weeks with seven points from three games, VfL Bochum again put in a weak performance against the reigning bottom team. As in the Revierderby against FC Schalke, the game against VfB Stuttgart was also lost on Easter Sunday. A pattern is unmistakable.

For the record against the direct competition from the bottom of the Bundesliga reads rather modest this season: five defeats with only two wins. Whenever the opponent was in 16th, 17th or 18th place, they left the pitch against VfL as winners. Both games against Schalke and Stuttgart were lost, while revenge was at least taken against Hoffenheim in the second leg for the first leg defeat.

Hertha BSC has already been defeated in the first leg. As things stand, the match on Matchday 33 could therefore be of particular significance. So the question arises: Can the VfL only be underdogs?

“I think it seems that way, but it’s not,” VfL coach Thomas Letsch replied following the home defeat to Stuttgart. “I won’t let anything happen to the team. They’re fighting, they’re giving everything.” But so do the opponents in the basement duels.

Letsch therefore also admits that it was of course a different game against Stuttgart. “We had 55 percent possession, in the other games significantly less. There you can focus more on playing against the ball, which suits us more.”

The coach continued, “We are a team that loves to attack opponents and win balls.” Teams from the basement, however, don’t do Bochum the favor of playing out flat at the back and falling into pressing traps. Stuttgart stood defensively compact most of the time and relied on its fast wingers – as VfL usually likes to do. “In the first half, we didn’t find any good solutions,” Letsch said of the lack of courage on the offensive. “The long ball can be a means, but then he must be prepared. He often wasn’t.” He said he felt a bit reminded of the five-game losing streak at the beginning of the year.

The reaction to that, however, was the aforementioned seven points from three games. With Union Berlin, VfL Wolfsburg and Borussia Dortmund and Gladbach, four teams from the top half of the table await in the upcoming games. The first leg record is even with two wins and two defeats – and VfL will again be allowed to feel comfortable in its underdog role.

Therefore, Letsch did not want to overestimate the defeat against Stuttgart, even if it of course hurt. “We’ve already been away twice. Hoffenheim felt like it was already gone, Schalke was gone, Stuttgart now already – and everyone is still in it. And it will stay that way until the end. “