Hat-trick against Dortmund showed striker’s instinct and invention as Sebastian Hoeness finds a solution yet again
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his had felt like one of those weeks not in which momentum was shifting, but in which it had already shifted. It was ultimately a positive one for Germany; they had entered Monday’s reception of Slovakia, who had beaten them in the teams’ first game in Bratislava, with need of a point and not without some trepidation. Those worries were emphatically scrubbed out in Leipzig, 6-0. It was night and day next to the laboured win in Luxembourg three days before, but those contrasting displays had one thing in common. They were marshalled by the goals and the sang-froid of Nick Woltemade.
That the towering striker was Stuttgart’s for a season feels almost a dream already; a super, surprise single season of future fable to be filed alongside Didier Drogba’s solo campaign at Marseille as he power-walked the path to global domination. Yet if any team in Germany are equipped to deal with sudden, painful personnel losses it is Sebastian Hoeness-era Stuttgart.
This is the coach who saved the club from relegation in 2023 only to have key men such as Konstantinos Mavropanos and Wataru Endo sold – he responded by guiding his team into runners-up spot in the Bundesliga and the DfB Pokal quarter-finals. On reaching the Champions League, Borussia Dortmund relieved them of their two headliners, Serhou Guirassy and Waldemar Anton. Stuttgart responded with some strong Champions League displays, despite missing out on the knockouts, and winning the Pokal. Dealing with Woltemade’s exit should be a piece of cake.
