At VfB Stuttgart, they could have blamed the 1:4 defeat in Augsburg on personnel problems. But they didn’t, especially not Daniel Didavi.
Because VfB Stuttgart could have distanced themselves from the relegation places – such as FC Augsburg in 16th place – by seven points, sporting director Sven Mislintat spoke to DAZN after the final whistle of a “huge missed opportunity”. Daniel Didavi went into more detail a little later – and put at least one finger in the middle of the Swabian wound.
While Mislintat had clearly classified the injury-related substitutions of goalscorer Chris Führich and Marc-Oliver Kempf after Stuttgart’s 1:4 in Augsburg as “part of this story”, Didavi did not want to let Stuttgart’s already stately lazarette “stand today”.
“In the first 20 minutes we dominated Augsburg,” said the 31-year-old, “and then, typical for us, we just stop playing.” Also as a result of the early substitutions, Stuttgart lost the thread in the Schwabend duel, and after the break Pellegrino Matarazzo’s team was then pretty much without a chance.
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“With all due respect to Augsburg, they didn’t play us up against the wall. That was down to us,” said Didavi, who had recognised “simply an attitude problem today”. He emphasised this again and again: “If the attitude had been right, we could still talk about who was missing – and of course you notice when ten players are missing. But you also have to address that.”
The left-footer considered the fact that three of the four goals conceded came from standards to be less of a problem – “no matter how Augsburg scored the goals, they deserved them.” But even if Didavi did not want to overstate the definitely impairing problems of a young team in the end, the veteran soberly stated: “For me, today was the first time that we didn’t give enough. “
