Stuttgart and Sparta Prague share the spoils in eventful Champions League encounter
Sparta travelled to Germany looking to build on their impressive start to the league phase and it looked like they were going to do just that early on, as they applied a lot of early pressure on their hosts.
That was until the Bundesliga side scored their first Champions League goal at home for 14 years, with Maximilian Mittelstadt floating a lovely waited cross on to the edge of the six-yard box, allowing Enzo Millot to rise above the defenders to head down into the bottom right corner of Peter Vindahl’s goal.
Falling behind didn’t deter the visitors, as they went straight back to probing the hosts’ defence, with Martin Vitík nearly bringing them level minutes later, as his header at the back post beat Alexander Nubel but came off the woodwork.
But Sparta finally got their goal just after the half-hour mark, as Kaan Kairinen curved his free-kick from the top of the box away from the diving Nubel, with the ball ricocheting off the woodwork and into the net.
The woodwark would deny the visitors again before half-time, this time with Veljko Birmancevic seeing his header bounce off the top of the goal and fly out of play. Both teams then came out for the second half unwilling to drop their attacking principles from the first, as the game continued to be end-to-end.
Birmancevic had the first clear-cut chance of the half, as he received the ball in arches of space in the Stuttgart box, but Nubel was quick to come off his line and gave the attacker nowhere to shoot except straight at the German shotstopper.
As the game progressed, Stuttgart started to press the visitors back into their half and they made countless half-chances, but Sebastian Hoenel’s men failed to find the killer goal that their second-half efforts deserved.
While it's a positive result for Lars Friis’ side it still means that 1992 remains the last occasion when Sparta triumphed against German hosts. Meanwhile, Stuttgart will be frustrated not to win late on, as they only have one point from their first two league phase games.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Filip Panak (Sparta Prague)
