Striker Serhou Guirassy against FSV Mainz 05 with three goals

In the first half he gave Mainz hope of getting off lightly on this Saturday afternoon. Serhou Guirassy, ​​the Bundesliga’s top summer goalscorer, hit the ball instead of pushing it into the goal (38th minute). But the misfire of the 27-year-old Guinean, who was born and raised in France, was nothing more than a deceptive snapshot when looking back at the 3-1 victory of fourth-placed VfB Stuttgart at 1. FSV Mainz 05.

After an uneventful and goalless first half, the man with the matching shirt number 9 made up for it three times after the substitution. The center forward gave the Swabians a 1-0 lead with a lob from his right ankle (56th) after a fatal positional error by Mainz central defender Stefan Bell.

His second strike after Mainz’s equalizer by Barreiro (70th) was achieved after a slip by Edimilson Fernandes, Mainz’s second central defender, with a low left-footed shot into the near corner (84th). And at the end he outwitted the goalkeeper Zentner, who was charging towards him, with a header arc (90.+7), after he displaced the third Mainz central defender Sepp van den Berg before the 3-1 and then skillfully served the ball to his head with his foot had.

Eight hits so far

Jumped like a jump: The irresistible attacker Serhou Guirassy increased his goal tally to eight goals after four games with his first hat trick in the Bundesliga. At that point, not even the best Bundesliga scorers to date, Gerd Müller (40 goals) and Robert Lewandowski (41), both from FC Bayern Munich, were that far. The Mönchengladbach center forward Peter Meyer alone was even more accurate 56 years ago, in the 1967/68 season, with nine goals after four games than Guirassy, ​​who was celebrated by the fans during these VfB festival weeks.

“Serhou is probably in the form of his life right now,” said coach Sebastian Hoeneß, praising his 1.87 meter long goal scorer, who has scored twice as many goals at this early stage of the season as the even higher rated Harry Kane and Victor Boniface. The fact that Guirassy scores goal after goal with the utmost ease also has to do with the fact that this attacker, who only scored nine times in 45 competitive games in his two and a half years at 1. FC Köln (2016 to 2019), is as comfortable as possible in Stuttgart at none of its six professional locations in France (OSC Lille, AJ Auxerre, SC Amiens and Stade Rennes) and Germany.

When VfB signed the striker, who was on loan from Rennes, after a season with fourteen competitive goals in early summer for a transfer fee of nine million euros and Guirassy then did not make use of an exit clause of supposedly 15 million euros, it was also clear how comfortable he was feels in Stuttgart. The devout Muslim and calm family man has emphasized this several times.

On the pitch, however, Guirassy makes a name for himself as an emotional powerhouse without being an egoist on the ball. “He is a complete player,” says Hoeneß, “but he also benefits from the team.” Deniz Undav, Guirassy’s German-Turkish colleague on the offensive, whom VfB borrowed from Brighton & Hove Albion from the Premier League, raved on Saturday about the goalgetter from the service. “The casualness with which he cleans things up is not something to be taken for granted. He’s ice-cold in front of goal and has fun playing the game.”

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Guirassy confirmed what Hoeneß suspected after his biggest Bundesliga holiday to date: “I think I’m in the form of my life.” The word will get around elsewhere too. Before this season, the Premier League middle class club FC Fulham was particularly interested in VfB’s top scorer, Sebastian Hoeneß already suspected that Guirassy “can really show his worth with another really good Bundesliga season, possibly with twenty goals plus what he is capable of. Then clubs from completely different categories could approach him.”

The Stuttgart star striker isn’t thinking about that at the moment. He took the game ball home with him in Mainz. A common goalscoring ritual that Guirassy is getting more and more used to.