VfB Stuttgart
| 0-1 | Sakai [OG] | (51. Min) |
SpVgg Greuther Fürth
| 0-2 | Azemi | (89. Min) |
Thanos Petsos
Antonio Rüdiger
Stats 
Ibrahima Traoré in action during the game.
VfB falter to Fürth
The extent of the disappointment is difficult to fathom. After a first 45 minutes, when Stuttgart dominated but failed to find the target, the home side slumped to a 0-2 defeat to relegated SpVgg Greuther Fürth at the Mercedes-Benz Arena. Antonio Rüdiger saw red in the second half.
Suspensions to Vedad Ibisevic and Georg Niedermeier meant Bruno Labbadia was forced to make changes to his starting eleven, bringing in Shinji Okazaki and Felipe in place of the suspended duo, who watched the game from the Cannstatter Kurve.
There was little by the way of chances early on but in the eleventh minute, VfB got their first sight of goal, with Martin Harnik only narrowly failing to find Martin Harnik with a delivery to the back post. In the 18th minute, the 48,300 crowd though the hosts were set to take the lead, but Shinji Okazaki nodded the cross from Alexandru Maxim just wide of the mark. As the half wore on, the home side maintained the momentum and had chances through Christian Gentner (22’) and Shinji Okazaki (30’), before Ibrahima Traoré then struck the outside of the post with a curled effort (38’). In spite of their superiority though, VfB had nothing more than a 0-0 to show for their efforts going into the break.
Arthur Boka: “We were compact in the first half, we worked well as a team and created chances for ourselves." Post match comments
All goes wrong – deficit and red!
Straight from the re-start, VfB pushed again in search of an opener but were again to remain without the necessary luck. From out of nowhere though, the visitors launched a ball into the VfB box and in an attempt to clear, Gotoku Sakai turned the ball past Sven Ulreich to stunningly put Fürth in front (51’). Both Christian Gentner as well as Martin Harnik soon after tried their luck in finding an equaliser, but there was to be no joy for the bulk of the spectators and then, more misery!
Diashow
In the 76th minute, Antonio Rüdiger was issued the red card and Fürth awarded a penalty. Bernd Nehrig stepped up to take the responsibility from the spot, but Sven Ulreich stood firm and batted away the spot-kick. Martin Harnik had a further chance to level with two minutes to go but was unable to keep his shot on target and then, with the game quickly slipping away from the home side, Ilir Azemi was set free and slotted home to make it 2-0 for the visitors and a poor second half performance by VfB was sealed with defeat to the already relegated side from Franken.
