Niko Kovac reacted to Karim Adeyemi’s recent outburst of anger and sent clear words to his protégé.
In the last-minute win against 1. FC Köln (1-0), Adeyemi was substituted for Fábio Silva in the 79th minute. Extremely frustrated, the winger smashed his drinking bottle against the Dortmund bench.
“I think something like that is unnecessary,” said Kovac when he saw the scene after the game Sky was recorded.
Kovac: “We are a team”
The BVB coach always explains it to his players as follows: “‘If you don’t want to go out, then your friend Maxi Beier – or whoever – won’t come in. So if you can allow yourself not to want to go out, then you’ll stay in for 90 minutes, but please clarify that with your friend.'”
And Beier, of all people, was supposed to score the winning goal deep in stoppage time and redeem BVB. “We are a team. Football is a team sport. This is the only way we can be successful,” Kovac made clear.
Warning to Adeyemi
The coach referred to the breadth of the squad: “That means I will now send some of them into the stands. That’s also part of it. Salih Özcan was hit today, and if everyone is healthy, one or two of them will certainly be hit,” said Kovac.
As for the frustrated Adeyemi? “That’s the way it is. It’s okay that he can be angry sometimes. But that’s unnecessary. I mean, he’s an adult,” Kovac noted critically.
Meanwhile, it is not the first time that there is a need to talk between Kovac and Adeyemi.
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