Pellegrino Matarazzo’s side made the perfect start against St. Gallen, who currently occupy second place in the Swiss Super League. With just ten minutes on the clock, Juan José Perea beat several St. Gallen players on the right side of the penalty area before crossing for the unmarked Nikolas Nartey, who slotted home the opening goal. VfB grew in confidence and kept the St. Gallen defence occupied after breaking the deadlock, although they needed two good saves from substitute goalkeeper Fabian Bredlow to deny former VfB man Chadrac Akolo (26’, 39’).
Matarazzo’s charges carried that momentum into the second half, with recent signing Luca Pfeiffer doubling their advantage moments after the restart. Philipp Klement then completed the scoring with seven minutes remaining, firing home Mateo Klimowicz’s right-wing cross at the far post to hand VfB a 3-0 victory in front of 1,000 spectators.
VfB sporting director Sven Mislintat: “It was a good test against the Swiss Super League’s second-placed team, who always play with physicality. The friendly has achieved everything it was supposed to. There are obviously certain things we could do better, but we’ll look at that in the analysis. Today it was just important to offer game time to the lads who’ve been injured or haven’t been playing as much – and they produced a top performance.”
VfB line-up
33 Bredlow (Seimen 62‘)
6 Mola (43 Awoudja78’)
11 Perea (39 Kastanaras 46‘)
15 Stenzel (C) (3 Endo 62‘)
16 Karazor
20 Pfeiffer (31 Klimowicz 62‘)
25 Egloff (29 Klement 62‘)
27 Kuol
28 Nartey (4 Vagnoman 29’)
36 Ulrich (32 Ahamada 46’)
37 Aidonis (2 Anton 46’)
49 Kudala (21 Ito 62’)
Goals
1:0 Nikolas Nartey (12.), 2:0 Luca Pfeiffer (47’), 3:0 Philipp Klement (83‘)
