Stuttgart Surge’s series of defeats in the European League of Football continues with the 20:26 after extra time against Frankfurt Galaxy – but the performance curve is now clearly pointing upwards.
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There is good news and bad news for Stuttgart Surge fans. The bad first: The club from the European League of Football (ELF) remains without a win after six games of the season, the Stuttgart team lost to Frankfurt Galaxy in the Gazistadion 20:26 (3:0, 14:7, 0:3, 3:10 , 0:6) in overtime. The good news: Surge showed a remarkable upward trend and defied the reigning champion from Hessen for almost the entire game – a victory, and that would have been a big surprise, was absolutely possible. Under the television tower, the new quarterback Dante Vandeven also impressed in his second game for Surge with good passes, a lot of overview, robust mobility, and he even got a touchdown himself.
The game was high quality and dramatic. Stuttgart started furiously with a long drive, which, however, faltered shortly before the end zone and was only ended with a field goal by Luca Faschian. After Frankfurt’s first attack was fended off, Surge followed up – and newcomer Jalen Conwell celebrated his first touchdown. Galaxy came up to 7:10 a little later, but shortly before halftime playmaker Dante Vandeven delighted the spectators by sprinting into the end zone himself (after he hadn’t found a free pass catcher), which led to the 17:7. And what made fans dream of their first win of the season.
But after the break, the Stuttgart defense no longer worked quite as accurately as before, and the players no longer harmonized in attack as they did in the first two quarters. First Galaxy came up to 10:17, the break in Surge’s game was complete when Ja’len Embry from Frankfurt intercepted a pass from Vandeven. Frankfurt equalized first and took the lead for the first time with a field goal of 20:17 one minute before the end – but Surge responded by equalizing with a field goal from Luca Faschian three seconds before the end of the game. In the overtime, numerous attempts failed here and there either due to missed field goals or interceptions (interception of a pass by the opponent), finally Galaxy man Lorenz Regulator managed a touchdown in the third overtime and thus secured the hard-fought victory for the favorite.
Surge was better in almost every stat, but not the bottom line. After there had been massive criticism of the team management around head coach Martin Hanselmann from the fans in the past few weeks after some sobering defeats, many supporters around the Gazi Stadium and on social media were forgiving and confident that he could soon achieve his first win of the season.
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