- BVB lose first Bundesliga game of the season
Rather surprisingly Borussia Dortmund’s first defeat in the Bundesliga came at the hands of Fortuna Düsselforf. The newly promoted side defended well and used their chnces on offenses with one simple counter finished of by Lukebakio and an excellent strike that could be in contention for goal of the season from Zimmer.
BVB will have to learn from their first defeat and improve against teams that park the bus. Lucien Favre has not found the solution against teams that play defense with basically their entire team and go on the counter, Düsseldorf is not the only example, Brugge also made life difficult for Dortmund with similar tactics.
Marco Reus reacted after the game and calmly described why BVB didn’t deserve three points yesterday:
“Today we were lacking the desire to win the match. We knew beforehand that Düsseldorf would largely resort to counter-attacks. And that’s what happened. We made a stupid mistake in our build-up play, losing the ball, and then Düsseldorf played a long ball and scored the goal. Thereafter it was almost like running into a wall. We subsequently conceded the second from a wonder effort and were completely chasing the game. All in all, we deserved to lose because we didn’t invest enough. Our opponents have been making our life more difficult recently because they’ve sat deeper and kept the space tighter. We need to learn from that. We need to play with more purpose and desire, wait for our chance and take it. Today it didn’t work out. As always, we need to dust ourselves down and continue, we have our next opportunity on Friday. I’m sure that we’ll show a very different side to ourselves then.”
Lucien Favre made similar comments:
“They countered very well, that was probably their plan. They sat back very deep and we couldn’t find the gaps. The second half was better, but then we conceded the second goal. They played well tactically. We can’t avoid everything. We need to wait and see who’ll be capable of playing at centre-back on Friday. Today both Akanji and Diallo went off with injuries. Zagadou is injured as well.”
Borussia Mönchengladbach won their game against Nürnberg and are now just 6 points behind Dortmund which makes the game on Friday when both teams meet that much more interesting. BVB are under some pressure to get a result to cap of the first half of the season with a certain feeling of success. The black and yellows played an amazing Hinrunde and exceeded all expectations but losing the last two games would somewhat tarnish the great results.
Borussia Dortmund is once again linked to another winger. Ukrainian outlet Sportarena claims BVB are interested in Viktor Tsyhankov, a 21-year old winger from Dynamo Kiyv. The black and yellows would like to replace Christian Pulisic with Tsyhankov and have already made an offer of 20€ million (16€ mil. fee + 4€ mil. bonus).
Tsyhankov is certainly an interesting player, he has played 28 games for Dynamo this season across all competitions and has scored 8 goals and added 8 assists. He plays mainly on the right wing even though he is left footed. He could very well be an interesting option for BVB but as always take this one with a grain of salt.
Daily Buzz: What was the main reason for Dortmund’s first defeat in the Bundesliga in your opinion?