Bundesliga team VfL Bochum will have to do without its captain at Union Berlin (April 16). Anthony Losilla is indispensable even at the age of 37.
It was a bitter Easter Sunday for VfL Bochum. The Bundesliga club missed out on a chance to break free in the relegation battle and conceded a 2:3 home defeat against direct rivals VfB Stuttgart.
Instead of increasing the gap to the relegation spot, the lead is now “only” three points. Although VfL still has everything in its own hands, the mood after the final whistle was depressed.
In addition to the disappointment of the home defeat, there was another piece of bad news. For: Anthony Losilla, captain and perennial favorite of the Bochum team, saw his fifth yellow card and will thus be missing for the upcoming away match in Union Berlin (April 16, 5:30 p.m.).
So far, the 37-year-old has been in the starting eleven in 25 of 27 Bundesliga games. Losilla has already been sent off at Werder Bremen (0:3) and in the derby against FC Schalke 04 (0:2) due to a red card. His team scored zero points and did not score a goal.
After the final whistle, coach Thomas Letsch said with regard to the absence of his captain: “The last time he was out, we scored zero points. We missed him massively in those two games and it won’t be easy now either. But we have to and will find a solution. There are two or three things I have in mind that we’re thinking about intensively.”
RevierSport has researched how the results were in recent years when Losilla was not available to the team. The Frenchman has been under contract at Castroper Straße since 2014 and has played 302 competitive games for the club since then. In this period he missed only 19 games – suspended, sick, injured and twice he was not in the squad.
His record is anything but positive: four wins, five draws and ten defeats. That makes for a points average of 0.89. Particularly striking: without Losilla, defensive stability was often lacking. In the 19 games, Bochum conceded a whopping 33 goals.
These statistics show how important Losilla is for VfL Bochum. The veteran is strong in two fights, present in the air, ball-secure and has a lot of experience. It will be exciting to see how Coach Letsch plans to compensate for this loss in Berlin – and also polish up the balance sheet.