For a brief moment, a mixture of genuine affection and joy spilled from the south stand down onto the pitch, but by then the game had already ended. The people cheered a laborious 1-0 victory for their Dortmund team against VfL Wolfsburg and an eternal hero: “Marco Reu-euss,” the supporters shouted after the long-time captain scored the goal of the day. Reus enjoyed it and later spoke of a “clear” performance from BVB, while coach Edin Terzic even saw “probably the best performance of the season”. But Borussia Dortmund had not yet played like a top team.
Rather, the title contender somehow drags himself through the season without shining. However, BVB has collected eleven points and is one of the small group of teams that are still unbeaten in the Bundesliga. “We are still there, two points behind the league leaders,” said sports director Sebastian Kehl. That’s one way of looking at the situation and this game. However, more critical minds can also look at the state of this team from a different perspective: for almost an hour, apart from a very nice Reus free kick (5th), Dortmund didn’t have a single opportunity to score. When in possession of the ball there was a lack of clarity and precision for a long time, but there was also a formation on the pitch that had never played together like this before.
Coach Terzic had fundamentally restructured his team, probably with several considerations in mind: On the one hand, the period of the English weeks had begun, and there was rotation in order to counteract the risk of overloading. However, the fact that Emre Can, Karim Adeyemi and Donyell Malen were on the bench, as was Sébastien Haller, who was already missing from the starting line-up in Paris during the week, was probably also a reaction to the recent performances of these professionals. BVB is simply not playing well at the moment; However, things didn’t get much better with Reus, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Felix Nmecha, Niclas Füllkrug and Salih Özcan in the starting line-up.
Wolfsburg captain Arnold: “There was more to it”
It was a fairly low-quality football game that the two clubs offered their audience, although Wolfsburg and Dortmund are clubs that actually have high ambitions. This is also why Maximilian Arnold left with the feeling that a draw or even a win would have been possible against these Dortmund players: “If we are honest, there was more possible today, with less fear,” said the VfL captain.
In the first half, Wolfsburg actually had the best opportunity to score, but Tiago Tomas’s shot from a good position in the penalty area was denied by Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel (37′). There wasn’t much going on in front of the goals before the break. The Wolfsburg team wanted to be stable defensively, which they did quite well. And Dortmund currently lack the form and self-confidence to create much of a goal threat against well-defending teams. The passing game stalled and the ball only moved a little better after the break.
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Dortmund had their first good opportunity of the game after 53 minutes when Füllkrug received the ball so poorly in front of the goal after a strong pass from Mats Hummels that he didn’t even get a shot. Julian Brandt (54′), Reus (55′) and Bynoe-Gittens also didn’t hit the ball properly when they shot in this first small pressure phase, just like Tomas shortly afterwards in the BVB penalty area (60′). High-class football looks different.
In the midst of the many exciting and goal-rich games of the Bundesliga season so far, this game was hardly able to please any spectators for a long time. At least until Marco Reus made it 1-0, with the long-time BVB captain completing Dortmund’s best attack of the afternoon (68th). The hard-working Brandt provided the template. “That was okay, but it’s not our benchmark,” was Reus’s assessment, adding that BVB was “not completely in the flow,” so they had to “accept the duels first,” and at some point “the playfulness comes along.”
But they’re not that far yet. On the other hand, the near-champion of the previous season defended more stably than last and was “ice-cold in the end,” said Kehl, who said: “After this turbulent week, that was a step forward.”
