Both away days here point south-west
Both away days in these rows point the same direction. On the fifth of September the trip was to TSG Hoffenheim, which means the south-west of Germany, and it finished three-two to the visitors. On the nineteenth the trip was to VfB Stuttgart at the MHPArena — the ground the row names — and it finished one-nil to the visitors again. Two rides out of the Ruhr and down to Baden-Württemberg in a fortnight, and both times the journey home was the good end of the deal. That is the kind of fortnight every squad says it wants. The Stuttgart trips have history in these rows, and it is getting better with age. There was a three-three at home with VfB Stuttgart in November, the sort of afternoon nobody plans. There was the fourth of April last season, away at Stuttgart, two-nil. And there is the nineteenth of September, away at the MHPArena, one-nil. Three meetings in these rows and the last two are both clean sheets on the road — the fixture has gone from a six-goal evening to a one-nil heist. Hoffenheim has flipped too, and quickly. The eighteenth of April: away, one-two, a defeat. The fifth of September: away, three-two, a win. Same away day, four months apart, one goal of difference and a completely different coach ride home. The fixture list loves an echo like that. The rows in between have their own texture. Three-nil at home over Werder Bremen in January. Two-nil at home over FC Augsburg in March. Four-nil at home to SC Freiburg in April. Three-two at home to Eintracht Frankfurt in May. And threaded through the home comforts, the awkward ones: a two-two away at RB Leipzig in February, a nil-one away at Borussia Mönchengladbach in May, and — on the sixteenth of May — a two-nil away at Werder Bremen that wrapped the run up neatly. That February evening in Leipzig is worth a second look. Two-two away, against the club whose own file remembers the same night from the other side: same date, same score, same shrug at the end. Some afternoons nobody wins and everybody travels home at the same speed. By the numbers — Bundesliga: 1st · 4 played · 4-0-0 · 9-2 · 12 pts · form WWWW. All data from ScoreCrowd's match records, retrieved 24 September 2026. The line above is Bundesliga only. Notice where the good days sit in that lot. The home matches in these rows are full of goals and goals against — three-three, three-nil, two-nil, four-nil, three-two — and the away rows are the careful ones: a two-two at Leipzig, two-nil at Stuttgart, one-two at Hoffenheim and nil-one at Mönchengladbach, two-nil at Bremen, and then this season's three-two at Hoffenheim and one-nil at Stuttgart. The only bad ends out there are Hoffenheim and Mönchengladbach last spring, a single goal each time. This is a team whose roads are quiet and whose own ground is loud, at least as these rows tell it. The competitions list carries the Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal and the UEFA Champions League — a bigger map than these rows show. Every row here is a league row, so the wider calendar belongs to another page. What is here is a fortnight that went like clockwork: down to the south-west twice and back with the win twice. The table line sits below and speaks for itself, and the roads so far are pointing south-west. What comes next is not in the data here yet. The map today is a small one: a corner of the south-west and the road home. Maps grow.