VfB Stuttgart answered last week’s 5-1 defeat to Bayern Munich with a convincing 4-1 Bundesliga win over FC Köln at the MHPArena on Friday night.
Bilal El Khannouss broke the deadlock in the 39th minute after Stuttgart had already struck the crossbar twice, and the match then turned on what happened just after the break. Köln pushed hard for an equaliser, but Fabian Bredlow’s saves kept Stuttgart in front before Grischa Prömel made it 2-0 in the 60th minute.
Ermedin Demirović added a third soon after coming on, Ramon Hendriks’s own goal briefly reduced the deficit to 3-1, and Josha Vagnoman’s late volley completed a scoreline that reflected Stuttgart’s greater control for most of the evening.
Stuttgart pull clear after Koeln’s early second-half push
Stuttgart were the sharper side from the start and could have been ahead much earlier. Josha Vagnoman hit the crossbar in the ninth minute and Dženan Pejčinović struck the woodwork again soon after, underlining the pressure the home side were building before the breakthrough finally arrived.
That opening goal came in the 39th minute, and it was the best moment of the first half. El Khannouss drove forward on a solo run after Vagnoman’s involvement in the move and finished to give Stuttgart a deserved lead. At 1-0 up by half-time, Sebastian Hoeneß’s side had the advantage their first-half threat merited.
Köln changed the rhythm immediately after the restart with a double substitution, sending on Mikey Moore for Jan Thielmann and Ellyes Skhiri for Paul Okon-Engstler. The visitors were far more aggressive in that spell and suddenly looked capable of dragging the match back level.
Bredlow was the reason they did not. The Stuttgart goalkeeper reacted well to keep out efforts during Köln’s best period, including chances from Moore and Alessio Castro-Montes, and those interventions mattered. Köln had their window at 1-0, but they could not take it.
Stuttgart punished that failure in the 60th minute. Prömel finished from Maximilian Mittelstädt’s assist to make it 2-0, a goal that arrived shortly after Köln had threatened most strongly and shifted the match back towards the hosts.
From there, Stuttgart were clinical. Demirović replaced Deniz Undav in the 70th minute and needed only five minutes to score, finishing from Finn Jeltsch’s assist for 3-0. Hendriks’s own goal in the 81st minute briefly reduced the arrears for Köln, but Vagnoman settled the contest in stoppage time with a direct volley for 4-1.
The numbers reflected that pattern. Stuttgart finished with 19 shots to Köln’s 12, led 8-3 in shots on target, posted 2.155 expected goals to 0.601 and had 53 per cent of the ball. Köln’s second-half surge was real, but the home side still carried the greater weight of the game.
El Khannouss and Vagnoman lead Stuttgart’s response
Hoeneß was emphatic afterwards, calling the goal world-class and describing El Khannouss’s display as a top performance. That felt fair. The midfielder supplied the breakthrough, then remained central to Stuttgart’s best attacking work as the game opened up after the interval.
His influence did not end with the opener. El Khannouss also helped launch the move that led to Prömel’s 60th-minute goal, the strike that restored Stuttgart’s authority after Köln’s strongest spell. Finn Jeltsch later described the solo opener as the highlight of the match and said it should give El Khannouss real confidence again.
Vagnoman was just as important to the overall shape of the win. He assisted the first goal, hit the crossbar before the break and then struck the fourth himself with a clean late volley. It was the kind of all-round contribution that explained why Stuttgart looked dangerous in several different phases rather than relying on one burst of pressure.
Prömel and Demirović completed the picture. Prömel’s finish arrived at exactly the moment Stuttgart needed to reassert themselves, while Demirović’s goal five minutes after his introduction exposed a Köln back line that had become increasingly disorganised. This was a convincing result, but not an uncomplicated one; Stuttgart had to survive a difficult spell before turning control into a decisive margin.
El Khannouss summed it up neatly by describing the win as a great team performance against a good Köln side.
What comes next for Stuttgart and FC Koeln?
Stuttgart are seventh and Köln eighth, with both teams on three points after two matches. For Hoeneß’s side, the immediate value is the manner of this response after the opening defeat to Bayern.
Hoffenheim are next for Stuttgart on Saturday 12 September at 14:30 BST. They will go into that game with momentum and with evidence from this match that they can recover quickly when an opponent threatens to shift the contest.
Köln return on the same day when they face Werder Bremen at 17:30 BST. Their early second-half pressure in Stuttgart showed there is enough there to trouble good sides, but Marvin Schwäbe’s verdict on the key phase was hard to dispute: they should have found the equaliser before the game moved away from them.
