Borussia Mönchengladbach goes to VfB Stuttgart on Friday at 20.30 Uhr with nine professionals missing, and Alexander Blessin knows the stakes are now bigger than a routine away match. A defeat would leave the club as the first in 63 years of Bundesliga history to lose its first seven games.
That is the reason Stuttgart Vs Mönchengladbach is being searched now: Gladbach are bottom of the Bundesliga with zero points, and the attack is down to only Shuto Machino in principle. Blessin named Tim Kleindienst, Franck Honorat, Ko Itakura and Isaac Lidberg among the absentees, with Kleindienst, Honorat and Itakura sidelined by muscle injuries and Lidberg also out for the trip.
He said the list of missing players was there in black and white, and that not much had changed for the better. His message was blunt and unsentimental. The team, he said, must get through what he called the valley of ordeal, and there are still several steps to go before the situation looks normal again. Even so, he stressed that the squad remains highly focused, saying nobody has banned laughter or a few jokes, but that the atmosphere is very concentrated.
That composure matters because the club has already lost its first four league matches, and Blessin took over during the international break after that start had already collapsed. This week, the fan umbrella organization also called for the resignation of president Rainer Bonhof, adding another layer of pressure around a club that is running out of room for error.
The wider picture is harsh. In the reference cases, Fortuna Düsseldorf, FSV Mainz 05 and VfL Bochum each picked up points in their seventh match, which is exactly the mark Gladbach now approaches under a very different kind of spotlight. Friday night will not settle everything, but it will decide whether Borussia Mönchengladbach keeps the record threat at arm’s length or walks straight into it.
