Stuttgart blank hapless Timisoara in Romania

Stuttgart took a giant leap towards a place in the Champions League group stages after defeating Timisoara 2-0 in Romania on Tuesday night.

Youngster Timo Gebhardt gave Stuttgart the lead from the penalty spot in the 28th minute before a fine individual goal from Alexander Hleb two minutes later sealed the win.

Timisoara looked for a way back into the game, but a well organised defensive performance from Markus Babbel’s men made the task difficult, who with two away goals are close to joining fellow Bundesliga sides Wolfsburg and Bayern Munich in the main lucrative group stages of the Champions League.

Stuttgart had a good chance to go ahead in the 15th minute when Sami Khedira’s long-range shot was tipped over the crossbar by Timisoara goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon.

They did take the lead in the 28th minute after Ciprian Marica was brought down inside the penalty area by Pantilimon, who was only shown a yellow card.

Gebhardt, the youngest player on the field at the age of 20, took full responsibility to calmly dispatch the spot-kick into the bottom left-hand corner of the goal.

The Bundesliga side doubled their lead with a moment of magic from Hleb just moments later.

The Belarus international dribbled his way past at least five Timisoara defenders before lifting his shot delicately over the onrushing Pantilimon and into the far corner.

Lukas Magera almost replied immediately for the Romanians, but he placed a free header wide of Jens Lehmann’s post before another header from Dare Nibombe was headed behind by Serdar Tasci.

Stuttgart were riding their luck as they chose to shut up shop early with 45 minutes still to play and Timisoara did all they could to break them down in the second half.

But the best chances fell to the visitors on the break with Pavel Pogrebnyak and Marica both testing Pantilimon with shots from outside the area.

They didn’t need to do much more than that to take a comfortable lead back to Germany with them for the decisive second leg next Wednesday at the Mercedes-Benz Arena.