A tale of two drastic turnarounds

It was the best of times for VfB Stuttgart, and the worst of times for Borussia Dortmund. Tuesday’s Champions League slate had a lot of very normal and predictable (or at least explainable) results, but the two wild ones came from a pair of Bundesliga sides.

Dortmund definitively outplayed Real Madrid in the first half of their Champions League match. At the Santiago Bernabeu. It was a remarkable performance from a team that’s looked a long way off playing up to their talent level for much of this season. They exploited Real Madrid’s weakness at right back with fill-in Lucas Vázquez, forcing him into mistakes on both of their goals.

Madrid had a good sequence after the 2nd goal where they hit the crossbar twice, but otherwise, Dortmund were defensively solid, and while providing a consistent counter-attacking threat. And yet, everyone seemed to know what was coming next.

In the 55th minute, Dortmund manager Nuri Şahin opted to remove his team’s best counter-attacking outlet, Jamie Gittens, and replace him with central defender Waldemar Anton. This necessitated a shape change that his team didn’t appear comfortable with, while also removing their best mechanism for relieving pressure and threatening to score.

The results were disastrous, with Madrid scoring two quick goals to equalize the match. After this happened, Şahin inexplicably decided to triple down on his mistake, bunker in and play for a 2-2 draw, introducing midfielder Pascal Groß for attacker Donyell Malen. Later, rapidly aging and slowing defensive midfielder Emre Can entered to play right back against VINICIUS JUNIOR, and proceeded to get predictably rolled and smoked.

In a matter of 20 minutes, Şahin went from pulling off a shock result that would have saved his job for a few more months to getting questions about whether or not he’ll get his termination papers served to him at the airport. While Madrid might have pulled off a comeback win against a tactically astute team anyway, given their significant talent advantage, Şahin seriously accelerated the process.

A 2 hour flight or 13 day walk away, depending on your preferred mode of transportation, another German team was a huge underdog away to another European giant. Stuttgart have been on a roller coaster of results this season, while Juventus have been consistently excellent defensively and slowly but surely improving their attack. I expected a pretty comfortable 1-0 win with a +1 or better xG differential for the Bianconeri.

Instead, this happened.

Stuttgart’s winner didn’t come until stoppage time, and after Juve’s Danilo had been sent off for picking up two yellow cards in 5 minutes, and after they missed a penalty. But they were the clearly better team all game, with their previously leaky defense preventing Juventus from generating a single decent chance. Juve hadn’t registered a shot for 11 minutes before the red card!

This performance stands in extremely stark contrast to this weekend’s game against Real Madrid, where Stuttgart were genuinely uncompetitive after conceding the first goal.

Over on the premium betting newsletter, Ted said that he wanted no part of the wild variance that these teams provide and opted not to place a bet on either of these games. Very often, the best gambling strategy is about knowing which games you should not touch with a 10-foot pole. You should not gamble on Dortmund or Stuttgart games if you like keeping your money.

As a football fan, I love the Bundesliga and its second-tier teams, who regularly seem capable of beating the big boys or producing a 5-goal collapse. They’re unbelievable entertainment. As someone who tries to analyze football and produce some insights for readers and clients, they are an absolute nightmare.

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