It didn’t take long to identify the unlucky player of the night at VfL Bochum. Philipp Strompf apologized in the locker room for his mistakes, but on the other side, there were only words of encouragement.

Philipp Strompf was the unlucky one on Wednesday evening during VfL Bochum’s cup exit against VfB Stuttgart. First, he caused the own goal that made it 0-1; shortly before halftime, he was sent off following a VAR review for a professional foul.

It was a rough night, but there were no accusations directed at him. On the contrary: In the locker room, the center back apologized to the team.

Bochum coach Uwe Rösler explained afterward: “I was moved by what he said and how he conveyed it. And I think that went down very well with everyone in the locker room.”

He added: “He’s family, and we never let anyone in the family down. You can make mistakes, but what matters is how you bounce back from them. I have no doubts about Pippo in that regard.”

Left-back Maximilian Wittek also came to the coach’s defense. “Of course Pippo was down, but it happens that you have a bad day. We’ll lift him up quickly now—that’s what a team is for. Pippo has become a key pillar, plays at a very high level, and we’ll need him again on Saturday.”

That’s when they face Arminia Bielefeld at the Ruhrstadion. And Bochum wants to continue what they’ve started in recent weeks. Because the trend—as the performance against VfB also showed—is heading in the right direction.

Wittek also emphasized after the match against the defending DFB Cup champions that they could be very satisfied, because: “The most important thing is that we can say after the game that we gave it our all. If you look at how the game unfolded, things couldn’t have gone more unlucky for us. The quick 0-2 right after halftime was more or less the deciding factor. But we didn’t concede any more goals, which shows that we’ve continued to develop and have made some progress over the last few weeks.”

And now we need to build on that when Bielefeld comes to Bochum on Saturday. Wittek looks ahead: “Advancing would have been a nice bonus, of course, but our full focus is on the league and now on Bielefeld on Saturday. We need to recover well now and go into it with full energy.”