VFB Stuttgart vs. Borussia Dortmund: Winners and Losers from Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund beat VfB Stuttgart 3-0 away from home on Matchday 31 of the 2015/16 Bundesliga season on Saturday.
It was an impressive show of strength from the visitors, who had nothing to play for and were without star striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and midfield maestro Ilkay Gundogan, both of whom missed the game with injuries, while several key players started on the bench, among them team captain Mats Hummels.
The hosts, meanwhile, looked tentative and never posed any threat to Dortmund for the entire 90 minutes: The first somewhat dangerous effort on Roman Burki's goal came in the 72nd minute.
The Black and Yellows had already more or less decided the game in the first half through goals from Shinji Kagawa in the 21st minute and 17-year-old United States international Christian Pulisic seconds before the half-time whistle. Armenian playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored the third 11 minutes into the second period.
With their win in Swabia, Dortmund delayed Bayern Munich's title ceremony for at least one more week. Stuttgart, on the other hand, remain 15th in the table and have a massive game on the schedule for the next matchday, when they'll face 16th Werder Bremen, over whom they only hold a two-point advantage.
Here, Bleacher Report picks the winners and losers from Dortmund's third win of the season against Stuttgart—they had already beaten them in the reverse fixture and the DFB-Pokal round of 16.
Winner: Henrikh Mkhitaryan
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We've long run out of superlatives for the incredible season Henrikh Mkhitaryan is playing for Dortmund, so we'll let the numbers do the talking.
Scoring once himself and setting up the other two goals of the day, the 27-year-old has now been involved in 53 goals in all competitions, per Transfermarkt.co.uk. Completing seven of eight dribbles and racking up four key passes, per WhoScored.com, Dortmund's No. 10 was more than Stuttgart could handle.
His assist for Kagawa's opener was so good, it almost defied belief. "There aren't enough words to describe how good that pass from Mkhitaryan was," tweeted Deutsche Welle's Jonathan Harding.
The fact the Armenia international is still going so strong despite this being his 49th competitive match this season, a Bundesliga high, per local paper Ruhr Nachrichten (link in German), speaks volumes about his professionalism and class.
Loser: Jurgen Kramny
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However impressive Dortmund were, equally as poor were the hosts. Stuttgart head coach Jurgen Kramny must not have watched Hertha BSC suffer a harsh 3-0 defeat at the hands of Dortmund in the cup in midweek, because his VfB side looked just as flat as the team from the capital did on Wednesday.
The club's motto is "fearless and loyal," but fearlessness is the opposite of what the Swabians showed on Saturday. That was especially obvious when Dortmund opened the scoring, as centre-back Federico Barba, an Empoli loanee making his Bundesliga debut, was so scared of scoring an own goal he rather let Kagawa tap the ball in from close range.
Stuttgart were disorganised for much of the game, leaving gaping holes in the middle of the park Dortmund actually didn't do a good job of exploiting early on, and they were lucky not to concede even more.
Sporting director Robin Dutt might have appeared defiant in an interview with German broadcaster Sky after the game, refusing to analyse the game because all the attention should go to the next match against Bremen, but there's no denying the performance against Dortmund—which the fans answered with a chorus of whistles—will have to be reviewed.
Winner: Matthias Ginter
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With Hummels rested and Sven Bender nursing a slight knock on the bench, it was a rare opportunity for Matthias Ginter at his natural position in the heart of defence, only his second in 21 starts in the league this season, per Transfermarkt.
He answered his call with a majestic performance even Hummels would've been proud of, although Stuttgart's harmlessness—the hosts played without a true striker, with Timo Werner and Daniel Didavi roaming in and out of that spot—probably played a part.
Still, though, five interceptions and seven clearances, per WhoScored, are very good numbers against any opponent, and Ginter added a lot of good work in buildup play, completing 93.7 per cent of his 87 passes, leading the team in both categories.
Loser: Przemyslaw Tyton
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It's obviously too easy to lay all the blame for Stuttgart's horrendous defensive record—they and Bremen have conceded a league-leading 63 goals in 31 matches—on Polish goalkeeper Przemyslaw Tyton, but, too often, he's been a weak link for the Swabians.
There's simply too little consistency from the 29-year-old, who will pull off a sensational save in one moment only to concede a cheap goal in the next.
That was on display against Dortmund, were he stopped a number of shots quite impressively, most notably against Moritz Leitner in the dying moments of the game, but he also spilled two shots that Pulisic and Mkhitaryan converted into goals.
Winner: Christian Pulisic
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No, it wasn't a particularly great performance from 17-year-old sensation Christian Pulisic. He looked too eager to drift into the middle, impeding his own team-mates at times, and he struggled to get past defenders, losing possession seven times, per WhoScored, more than any other player on the pitch.
Be that as it may, Pulisic still found a way to contribute, scoring his second goal in as many Bundesliga games, making him the youngest player in the history of the German top flight to reach two goals, per Sky (link in German).
The 17-year-old had a fairly simple explanation for his goal, a tap-in after Tyton spilled a Mkhitaryan shot: "I learned as a kid, if you want to score goals, just follow up the shots."
Lars Pollmann is a Featured Columnist writing on Borussia Dortmund. He also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
