Maxi Eggestein: “There’s a lot of relief; it was a hard-fought game. Stuttgart played very aggressively, but I don’t think they had many clear cut chances. Taking the lead did us good and gave us security. That’s why we were able to attack with such confidence in the second half. In the end, Stuttgart were really pilling on the pressure and we had to defend with a lot of concentration until the final whistle.”
Fin Bartels: “I’m just happy that we managed to win the game with a lot of fight and passion. We held our own from the start against a strong Stuttgart side and played with confidence. VfB defended well and it wasn’t easy to find gaps. For the goal, Max and I were just really switched on and took advantage of the situation. Max’s finish was ice cold. In the final minutes, we were forced to hold out breath – that was not nice for the nerves.”
Ludwig Augustinsson: “We’re not satisfied with how we played today. We obviously want to play good football, but today it was only about the three points. We gladly accept the ugly win.”
Milos Veljkovic: “A 1-0 lead is always dangerous, so it was a tense game right until the end. Stuttgart defended aggressively against the ball from the first minute, they were up for the fight and caused us problems particularly in the second half. However, we fought through, remained concentrated and brought home a very important, if not ugly win.”
Philipp Bargfrede: “It was definitely a hard-fought win today. There’s no use in playing well and then scoring no points like in Leipzig. In our situation, I prefer to win without playing well. Today, we performed better and our game was more convincing.”
Frank Baumann: “Running hard and showing fight are just the basics, what’s important is what you do with the ball. Today, that aspect didn’t really work out, because Stuttgart didn’t allow us much space. VfB did well and we had to fight through.”
Florian Kohfeldt: “I’m satisfied and relieved about the win, which wasn’t undeserved despite Stuttgart’s chances. We had problems in our attacking positional play, partly also in our defensive play and we didn’t execute our counterattacks that well, but we compensated for all of that with our passion. It’s about showing complete willingness, even when not everything is working perfectly. Across almost the whole pitch, Stuttgart defended man-on-man, but we were able to open space through one-on-ones once or twice. We carved out key moments and used them – that’s exactly what we spoke about before the game.
