Borussia Dortmund’s footballers can take a breather. Just like the trainer Lucien Favre. Eight days after the 3-1 defeat at the start of the Champions League at Lazio Rom, BVB won the second game, this time in their own stadium, against the Russian champions and cup winners Zenit St. Petersburg 2-0 (0-0). However, the performance was by no means convincing. The strangely dispassionate Borussia found it very difficult. The men who only saved the team with a penalty goal in the 78th minute and in stoppage time were Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland.
The two men who are said to be brooding over the future of coach Favre at BVB are Hans-Joachim Watzke, managing director, and Michael Zorc, sports director, and both should have been satisfied with the result on Wednesday at best. With three points, the Westphalians are in an acceptable starting position in the group with Lazio, Bruges and St. Petersburg. The club still has every chance of reaching the round of 16.
Fave’s contract expires next summer. On Wednesday, the discussion about his future in Dortmund had picked up speed because, according to media reports, BVB should be interested in Julian Nagelsmann (RB Leipzig), Marco Rose (Borussia Mönchengladbach) and Jesse Marsch (RB Salzburg). Zorc said on Sky ahead of the game: “We’ll have these contract talks with Lucien Favre at some point, but now is not the time.”
This time, Favre had opted for Roman Bürki in goal because the Swiss was “no longer sick and fit again”. A curious debate has developed about the goalkeeper position at BVB in recent weeks because the industry, with all its commentators and experts, is of the unanimous opinion that Favre must make a firm decision on a goalkeeper – for Bürki or Marwin Hitz. As part of a running gag, Favre was asked at Sky whether the decision had now been made in favor of Bürki again, but the Swiss didn’t want to say yes, just grinned and concluded with his standard sentence: “I’ve already talked about it.” Whatever that means.
Sancho and Haaland secure the three points
In any case, Bürki had very, very little to do. The game was consistently a matter for connoisseurs of heavy, barrel-aged pressing football without a fresh counter note. Zenit remained stubbornly on the defensive and gave the somewhat perplexed Dortmunders hardly any opportunities. Favre kept shouting in from outside, looking dissatisfied. With the ex-HSVler Douglas Santos and the ex-Liverpooler Dejan Lovren, Petersburg’s defense was mostly stable, benevolently observed by Zenit’s assistant coach Anatoly Timoschtschuk, among others. Dortmund’s captain Marco Reus had returned to the starting line-up in ten position – here Favre is spoiled for choice and he is forgiven for rotations. In the stadium, which was completely empty this time, the Dortmund team was reluctant to increase the pressure in the second half and occasionally even heard Favre’s loud mantra to play more outside the box. After an hour it started raining heavily, which wasn’t exactly conducive to the unspectacular game. In the full seats there would have been some discontent, but that wasn’t the case in the BVB team at first, which could be because Favre likes to preach patience.
Thorgan Hazard came on for Mahmoud Dahoud after an hour. At first there was no playful impetus either, but in the midst of this uneventfulness Hazard was knocked down in the opponent’s penalty area by Vyacheslav Karavayev in the 77th minute. Sancho converted the due penalty to 1-0. But even with the lead in the back, Dortmund did not want to overtake the joy of playing. They acted with the passion of accountants and saw Haaland increase to 2-0 with the twelfth goal in the tenth Champions League game. In Bielefeld (Saturday), in Bruges (Wednesday) and the Saturday after next at home in the Bundesliga top game against Bayern, they will have to prove what they can do in terms of emotions.
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