The game at Union Berlin has a special meaning. For the team as well as the coach of VfB Stuttgart, who has to fear for his job, the team should let go again. Now Bruno Labbadia allows a glimpse into his inner life.
Bruno Labbadia is fighting for relegation with VfB Stuttgart.
IMAGO/Langer
What else is he supposed to do but spread optimism and self-confidence. “I have faith,” says Labbadia, who is no less realistic about the explosive nature of the situation. For VfB Stuttgart it’s about relegation, for the head coach it’s about his post. Nothing that upset the 57-year-old, according to his own statement. “There is no one who puts more pressure on me than I do on myself,” says Labbadia. “That’s why the pressure doesn’t bother me, it’s more about the question of what I can do. I come here every day and I have 50 things in my head that I can still do.”
Labbadia on his job at VfB: “It affects my entire life”
To get the team (finally) on the road to success. Or at least to prevent them from slipping into second-class status with their eyes wide open. Thoughts on training content, matchday squads, starting line-ups, tactical formations, plus the complicated planning for the new season. A smorgasbord of ideas and plans to tease out better performance. “It affects my entire life,” said the ex-national player, who could imagine better things. The situation is “not nice at the moment and not the life I imagine”. Nevertheless, the ex-national player never gives up.
Not even after emotional blows, such as the soberingly weak 0:1 against VfL Wolfsburg, which sank the Swabians to the bottom of the table and made the fear of relegation even more visible to the surface. Then, to make matters worse, he was also concerned with the question, “How do I keep getting back to passing on the necessary motivation. I have to motivate myself, while everyone else wants me to motivate them. They should actually be able to do it themselves.”
“I do it because I trust myself”: Labbadia believes in staying up
Labbadia lacks the impulse to surrender to the many adversities he is confronted with every day. “I always think about the goal. That really turns me on,” explains Labbadia. “I want to do it. That drives me every day. Despite all the anger and disappointment that I also have, I have faith.” Which has grown over the years of successful rescue missions of earlier years. “I know it’s an extremely tricky situation that I’ve been in many times. I’m doing it because I trust myself.”
Because he has already experienced it four times and has also successfully completed it. The complexity of the current situation is only comparable to that at VfL Wolfsburg, where the rescue only came in the relegation. With the difference that VfB’s third relegation after 2016 and 2019 would be far more difficult to repair than others before it. With serious consequences across all levels of VfB. What also drives Labbadia. “I take the task very, very seriously. I also feel responsible for the club and the staff.”
