FCA fall 1-0 to Stuttgart as poor run continues

FC Augsburg suffered another frustrating defeat away to VfB Stuttgart on Saturday afternoon. Just like last week, Augsburg were by no means the poorer team, but they failed to capitalise on their chances and never managed to recover from a 1-0 deficit.  Manuel Baum made two changes to the side that lost 3-1 to Eintracht Frankfurt: Raphael Framberger and Ja-Cheol Koo took the places of Jonathan Schmid and Fredrik Jensen. Star striker Alfred Finnbogason missed out again with a groin problem.  The game took a while to get going, as both sides didn’t give the other much room to operate. Neither team could string many passes together at all. Dennis Aogo’s long distance shot in the fifth minute remained the only chance to speak of for a substantial period of time.  Then suddenly after 20 minutes, FCA came alive. Julian Schieber laid the ball off perfectly into the path of Michael Gregoritsch in the penalty area, although he couldn’t squeeze his shot past the onrushing Ron-Robert Zieler (20’). Augsburg continued to have positive spells of possession thereafter. However, the game remained close and full of challenges and few goalscoring opportunities. So, it came as somewhat of a surprise when Stuttgart managed to beat Andreas Luthe in the Augsburg goal. The hosts countered effectively and Anastasios Donis finished the move off well to put them 1-0 up (39’).   FCA up the pressure  Augsburg started the second half with a lot of forward momentum and had a few good chances to equalise: First off, Martin Hinteregger headed straight at Zieler from a corner (56’), before substitute Andre Hahn tested him again a few minutes later (61’). FCA created chance after chance in this period, but never quite managed to get the necessary luck.  Markus Weinzierl’s side sat back for a long period and struggled in their push for a second goal. Again and again they pushed, and again and again FCA denied them. Nicolas Gonzalez narrowly missed in the 67th minute, before Erik Thommy was stopped twice by Andreas Luthe in the 82nd and 85th. With no real chances in the final few minutes, Augsburg were again left empty handed after a promising performance.  FCA will remain on their travels next week, as Bayer Leverkusen await on Saturday 8th December (15:30 CET).