It didn’t take long to identify the unlucky player of the evening at VfL Bochum. Philipp Strompf apologized in the locker room for his mistakes, but everyone else had nothing but words of encouragement for him.

Philipp Strompf was the unlucky one on Wednesday evening during VfL Bochum’s cup elimination 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’s coach, Uwe Rösler, explained afterward: “I was moved by how he said it, how he conveyed it. And I think that went over 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—you have an off day. We’re going to lift his spirits 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’ll face Arminia Bielefeld at the Ruhrstadion. And the Bochum players want to build on what they’ve started in recent weeks. After all, 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 the team 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 any more unluckily for us. Going down 0–2 right after halftime more or less sealed the deal. But we didn’t concede any more goals, which shows that we’ve continued to improve and have made progress over the past few weeks.”

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