Welcome to Fear The Wall’s weekly update on the kids. This will include updates to Borussia Dortmund’s U17, U19, and U23 teams. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

---

Borussia Dortmund U17

B-Junioren Bundesliga West

☹ the season is over ☹

Borussia Dortmund U19

U-19 Bundesliga West, DFB-Junioren Pokal

According to some reports, there is hope of getting the season underway starting on April 16^th. We shall see if that happens.

BVB U19 won their friendly against Regionalliga side SV Lippstadt 08 on March 9^th by a score of 4-1. The goals were scored by Bradley Fink (2), Göktan Gürpüz, and Julius Finn Rauch.

The U19s had another friendly on March 14^th against the U19 of SV Darmstadt. BVB won 2-0 thanks to Fink (25’) and Nnamdi Collins (90+1’).

Julian Rijkhoff sat on the bench, so his BVB debut will have to wait. Rauch, Rilind Hetemi, Wesley Heimann, and Collins were subbed on at the half.

Borussia Dortmund II (U23)

Regionalliga West

Stefan Drljaca, Steffen Tigges, Tobias Raschl, and Ansgar Knauff were all nominated to the Champions League roster for Borussia Dortmund’s game against Sevilla this past week. Good for them!

Back in the Regionalliga, the BVB U23s were back in action on March 13^th. They traveled to last place Rot Weiss Ahlen and drew 1-1. Which is disappointing to say the least. It could have been worse though, had Rot-Weiss Essen not lost their game to Preußen Münster.

The starting XI was captained by Tigges:

Enrico Maaßen was able to put together a more full-strength lineup than last week with Tigges, Alaa Bakir, and Dominik Wanner returning. On the other hand, Franz Pfanne had to serve his yellow-card accumulation suspension. Patrick Osterhage, Moritz Broschinski, and Taylan Duman remained out injured.

The game was a bit of a wild ride. BVB II had some good chances early before the game was interrupted for about 25 minutes in the first half due to a thunderstorm. After the resumption of play, it was a bit of a mud fight, or Schlammschlacht. Play still mostly went towards the Ahlen goal, even if offense predominantly went through long balls and set pieces.

In the second half, Kolbeinn Birgir Finnsson came on for Bakir and BVB II poured it on strong, going into full offense mode. It eventually paid off with a goal by Raschl (61’). Unfortunately, the hosts equalized seven minutes later. Maaßen made three more subs: Aday Ercan for Marco Hober (68’), Wanner for Knauff (79’), and Henri Weigelt for Florian Krebs (84’). The U23s pushed hard for the second goal (and almost conceded again), but it was a no go. And thus, the points were shared.

Hober (65’) and Lennard Maloney (87’) received yellow cards.

---

Looking Ahead

Borussia Dortmund II

The U23s have an English week ahead! They have games on March 17^th at Rot Weiss Essen (a big game!!) and March 20^th at home against SV Lippstadt 08. How do the U23s match up with these teams?

Well, after Saturday’s game, the Dortmund II squad sits in first place with 61 points (18W-7D-1L) and a goal differential of +48 (67:19). The top of the table is quite crowded though, so no slacking is allowed.

Rot Weiss Essen is hot on their tails in second place with one game in hand and with 57 points (17W-6D-2L) and a goal differential of +34 (50:16). This squad should not be underestimated as they didn’t drop their first game in the Regionalliga until February 26^th and managed to knock Bayer Leverkusen out of the DFB Pokal.

SV Lippstadt 08, who lost in a friendly to BVB U19, sits in 18^th place with 23 points (4W-11D-11L) and a goal differential of -16 (26:42). They are winless in their last five games.

Stats from kicker.de and fussball.de