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Terzic’s dealings with Haller: “How is that supposed to work?”

Although he is chasing a Bundesliga record, Sebastien Haller is having a hard time attacking BVB. His coach says with good reason: “We don’t hope it gets any better.”

If he plays, BVB wins in the Bundesliga: Sebastien Haller.

IMAGO/Laci Perenyi

Giovanni Reyna will play an unusual role in the matchday squad that Borussia Dortmund will be available to play in the Revierderby at Schalke on Saturday (6:30 p.m., LIVE! on kicker): Top scorer. Like Marius Bülter, Schalke’s most successful scorer, Reyna has scored five times this Bundesliga season, and because Julian Brandt (eight goals) and Youssoufa Moukoko (six) are injured, this time he is the measure of all things.

“You can only be in the table region where we are right now if you have a striker who has already scored 15 or 20 goals,” says coach Edin Terzic. “We just don’t have that, that’s what concerns us too. Because we know very well: If we want to achieve our goals, we need goals. That’s what we lacked in London too.”

Haller says he ‘won’t accept’ a bench seat against Schalke

The 16 different players who have already scored for BVB in the league – the best with Leipzig and Leverkusen – include Sebastien Haller, who could have been this 15-or-20-goal striker before his testicular cancer; the summer newcomer is on an equal footing with Niklas Süle or Donyell Malen, who have also only scored one goal.

In the Champions League defeat against Chelsea on Tuesday, Terzic Haller made a 77th minute substitution, although a goal was needed. As against Leipzig four days earlier, this was not very successful (kicker score 5). “We don’t hope that things will get better,” says Terzic, not only with a view to the Frenchman, “we’re working hard on it. We’re trying to involve the boys more in the game and give them the opportunity in training and also in extra shifts afterwards to give, to get even more rhythm, to get even more shots.”

Even if Terzic has not yet made a public decision on Friday: Haller will probably play again from the start against Schalke. But not because several alternatives are missing due to injury. Not because Haller said on “Sky” that he would “not accept” a bench in the derby (which Terzic repeated, as he did recently with Marco Reus, that he even thinks it’s a good thing).

Terzic: “It will only work if he is on the pitch”

No, Haller should play from the start because Terzic thinks it’s the most sensible approach after his long downtime. “Of course it’s always a decision that has to be made as to how much freshness and game practice we have to combine. But how is that supposed to work?” he asked, looking at Haller’s search for form. “The only way he can get back to his top form is by being on the pitch. We want to support him in that.”

Haller is one “of the guys with whom we are in contact every day and see how he feels. We don’t forget the path he has taken in the last few months,” said Terzic, and it resonated that he himself what all other observers want.

If not the goals, then Haller at least has this statistic on his side: BVB won all eight games with him this season. Only four players were used more often in a season and always won, the record is held by Lukasz Piszczek (eleven games, eleven wins 2020/21) from a former Dortmund player. So Haller is a real talisman, and it certainly doesn’t hurt in the Dortmund table region.

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