Borussia Dortmund is shaking its way to victory against 1. FC Heidenheim. Nico Schlotterbeck then told FC Bayern in clear words that they would fight for the championship – despite their poor performance. There is immediate opposition from our own camp.
Nico Schlotterbeck had already made it clear several times what he wanted from Borussia Dortmund: ambitious goals and, above all, more courage to formulate them publicly. But he has never done it as clearly as the national player, whose future is still open, expressed it on Sunday. “As BVB you have to have the ambition to say to the fans: We want to become champions,” said Schlotterbeck after the 3:2 (1:1) against 1. FC Heidenheim and an extremely poor team performance.
But that didn’t bother the central defender much. “We won with a bit of luck, but I don’t give a damn. That’s how football is, now there are six points. It’s three less than after the winter break. Maybe they’re starting to think about it,” Schlotterbeck told DAZN: “That’s why I can say and so can the boys: We want to attack.”
Six points – that’s the gap between the second-placed team and the leaders from Munich. Two match days ago there were still eleven points – but then Bayern suffered their first defeat of the season against FC Augsburg (1:2) and on Saturday, one day before BVB’s shock win against Heidenheim, they couldn’t get past a 2:2 draw at Hamburger SV.
Dortmund lacks structure and determination
Is there actually something going on for the people of Dortmund? Schlotterbeck believes: yes. “Of course we have to keep scoring points. We’ll try to be there,” he explained and looked ahead: Next Sunday, Bayern have to play against the in-form Hoffenheim (5:30 p.m., DAZN) – the day before, BVB played against struggling VfL Wolfsburg (3:30 p.m., Sky). And Bayern have to come to Dortmund on February 28th (6:30 p.m.).
The only problem is: the announcement that they wanted to play for the title was in stark contrast to Borussia’s team performance against the bottom of the table. BVB lacked structure and determination, especially in the first half. Even the rather fortunate lead by Waldemar Anton (44th minute) did not last until the half-time whistle – as Niehues was able to equalize (45th + 5th).
After Heidenheim was able to take the lead (48th), coach Niko Kovac’s team was booed by their own audience. Things remained shaky: Serhou Guirassy equalized with a hand penalty (67′). In the very next attack, the striker, about whom there had been a lot of discussion recently, made it 3-2.
At no point did the performance give the impression that a future German champion might be playing here – on the contrary. “To be honest, I’m having a bit of a hard time dealing with it after the game and the performance. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Sebastian Kehl after he was confronted with Schlotterbeck’s championship announcement. “I’m more concerned about the performance than the prospects for May,” said the BVB sports director.
BVB is the longest unbeaten team
In fact, the team is currently having more problems than its good statistics from the past few months suggest. Dortmund are the team that has currently been unbeaten for the longest time and, with 45 points from twenty games, are doing better than they have in years – but there is a problem in terms of play. The passing game is unclean. “We have to play better football, win games more clearly and work on ourselves before we think about other things,” said Kehl, calling for improvements.
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What gives Dortmund hope on the way there are Guirassy’s two goals. It was clear to see how hard the striker was fighting to get out of his personal crisis – and it was remarkable how Schlotterbeck supported him.
When BVB’s first penalty was awarded, the defense chief grabbed the ball – only to hand it over to Guirassy. When there was a penalty in the final phase, Schlotterbeck repeated this action. The first time Guirassy scored, the second time he failed – because he missed the target when he tried to lift the ball. “He wanted to try something again that I didn’t like,” said Kovac. By the way, the coach has already made it clear in recent weeks that he doesn’t believe in dreaming about the title.
