The 100th game as VfB coach did not bring Pellegrino Matarazzo the hoped-for first win of the season. The anniversary game against Union Berlin could therefore have been the last for the Stuttgart coach. In any case, sports director Sven Mislintat left the coaching question open after the final whistle.
Despite a committed performance against leaders Union Berlin, VfB Stuttgart remains without a win in this Bundesliga season. Worse still: The Swabians lost the home game against the Irons by a narrow 1-0 and slipped down to 17th place in the table.
There is a risk of another season in which it is all about staying up in the league until the end. It is becoming more and more questionable whether coach Pellegrino Matarazzo and his team will be able to make it perfect again on the last day of the Bundesliga match. The 44-year-old could face his “game of fate” next Saturday. Then VfB welcomes the last from Bochum, who scored their first win of the season against Frankfurt on Saturday.
So far it was assumed that Matarazzo would still get the two home games against Union and Bochum to get the first win of the season. After the bankruptcy against the Irons, however, the VfB sports director was reluctant to give the coach a job guarantee.
“The trust and backing is there, in the end you have to deliver here too,” he explained. And then left the coach’s question open: “I’m very optimistic that the team can and will win the game against Bochum, regardless of who’s on the bench.”
On Sunday evening, on the DAZN microphone, he again saw “a discrepancy” between performance and result. The number of points in the current season is “alarming”. Nevertheless, the performance was right again against Union Berlin. “The passion we brought to the pitch today” was good again, said Mislintat.
So far, the VfB sports director had always stood by his coach. But this time he left it open whether that will continue to be the case until the Bochum game. It is clear that if Matarazzo does not manage to win against VfL, he can no longer be held. With Adi Hütter and Sebastian Hoeneß, kicker recently brought two possible successors into play.
This article was originally published on 90min.com/de as After bankruptcy against Union Berlin: Mislintat leaves Matarazzo’s future open at VfB.
