The unlucky player of the evening was quickly identified 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 when VfL Bochum were knocked out of the cup by VfB Stuttgart. First, he scored an own goal to make it 0-1, then shortly before half-time, he was sent off after VAR intervention for a professional foul.

It was a miserable evening, but there were no recriminations directed at him. On the contrary: in the dressing room, the center back apologized to the team. Bochum coach Uwe Rösler said afterwards: “I was moved by what he said and how he said it. And I think that went down very well with everyone in the dressing room.”

He added: “He’s family, and we never let anyone in the family down. Mistakes can be made, but it’s important how you come back after mistakes. I’m not worried about that with Pippo.”

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 build him up quickly now; that’s what a team is for. Pippo has become a very important pillar, plays at a very high level and will be needed again on Saturday.”

That’s when they face Arminia Bielefeld at the Ruhrstadion. And Bochum want to continue what they started in recent weeks. Because the trend – as the performance against VfB showed – is pointing in the right direction. Wittek also emphasized after the game against the DFB Cup title holders 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. Looking at how the game went, it couldn’t have been more unfortunate 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 have developed and worked hard over the last few weeks.”

And now we need to build on that when Bielefeld come 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 Bielefeld on Saturday. We need to recover well and go into it with full energy.”