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.

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Borussia Dortmund U17

B-Junioren Bundesliga West

No news is good news, as they say.

Borussia Dortmund U19

A-Junioren Bundesliga West, DFB-Junioren Pokal

Rilind Hetemi debuted with the Kosovo U-21 National Team in their friendly matches against Qatar U-23. On March 26^th in a 2-0 loss, Rilind Hetemi was subbed on in the 87^th minute. Three days later in a 2-2 draw, Rilind Hetemi started the match and was subbed off after 90+2 minutes. He previously played for the German Youth National Teams.

Borussia Dortmund II (U23)

Regionalliga West

Iceland crashed out of the U-21 European Championship group stage with a 2-0 loss to France U-21 on March 31^st. Kolbeinn Finnsson started this match and played 86 minutes. He got a yellow card (12’) and committed two fouls. Kolbeinn Finnsson was available for this weekend’s Regionalliga match.

Photo by Peter Zador/DeFodi Images via Getty Images

The second team of Borussia Dortmund earned a hard-fought 1-0 win over fourth place Fortuna Köln on Easter Sunday, April 4^th. Appropriately, Steffen Tigges scored his 18^th goal of the season in BVB II’s 18^th straight unbeaten game.

The starting 11 was captained by Steffen Tigges:

Dominik Wanner was back in the squad, while Ansgar Knauff sat out due to being with the big club on Saturday. Taylan Duman is also week-to-week with an injury. Patrick Osterhage and Moritz Broschinksi remain out.

Dortmund II absolutely dominated the first 30 minutes of the game, with Köln not getting their first shot until the 32^nd minute. Köln stood deep in their defensive structure, so the U23s couldn’t get a lot of shots off, but they had what felt like 95% of the possession. Whenever Fortuna tried to counter attack, they got shut down at the center line. Tobias Raschl was solid in the defensive mid and Alaa Bakir was a one-man wrecking crew. The left side of Lennard Maloney, Dominik Wanner, and Steffen Tigges was on fire, with the latter getting about four great shots on goal and countless more looks.

Dortmund could have had a penalty kick in the 25^th minute after an obvious Köln handball, but alas. Shortly before the half, Köln had three corners in a row, and it got a bit messy in the box. Luca Unbehaun stood tall though and eventually decided it was time to social distance again and hammered the ball up the pitch. Richmond Tachie had a good counter attack chance from that.

The second half started where the first ended: a Fortuna corner kick. Luca Unbehaun stood tall though and cleared the situation. After Henri Weigelt (illegally) hugged the opponent for about the fifth time, play moved up the field. Alaa Bakir showed great individual effort and patience taking on three Köln players before laying the ball off to Steffen Tigges, who also had immense patience against three Kölner, before launching the ball into the back of the net (50’). This was a much, much needed confidence boost for the U23s!

Steffen Tigges was fouled hard and got subbed off for Aday Ercan (63’), while Dominik Wanner came off for Kolbeinn Finnsson (63’). The game became much more even and chippy all around. Seriously- there were football-style tackles all around, including Dominik Wanner tackling Köln’s goalkeeper (53’), Aday Ercan falling over Köln’s goalkeeper (71’), and Henri Weigelt taking an elbow to the face (which wasn’t called; 74’).

Tobias Raschl was also subbed off for Florian Krebs (73’), before Alaa Bakir took a yellow card for a late foul (73’). Steffen Tigges’ absence was felt, as the game became sloppy. Köln never really had an offensive structure to start with, but now BVB II didn’t either. Luca Unbehaun was kicking a lot of long balls up the pitch. After the 80^th minute, the game was mostly tackles and defensive moves. Alaa Bakir was subbed off, after receiving a knock, for Cebrails Makreckis (86’). In the added time of the second half, it was all Köln offensively. Dortmund’s mantra was essentially „hoch und weit bringt Sicherheit!“

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Looking Ahead

Borussia Dortmund U17

Ei mitään. The B-Junioren Bundesliga season is over.

Borussia Dortmund U19

Ekkert. The A-Junioren Bundesliga season is over.

Borussia Dortmund II

Another English week lies ahead for the boys in black and yellow. They hit the road for Preußen Münster on April 7^th and Borussia Mönchengladbach II on April 10^th.

Preußen Münster sits in third place with 31 points (18W-7D-6L) and a goal differential of +22 (48:26). They are 7W-3D-0L in their last 10 games, although they have been alternating wins and draws for their last six. Still, this team is not to be underestimated, no matter how low scoring the games tend to be.

Borussia Mönchengladbach II sits further down the table in 12^th place with 39 points (11W-6D-14L) and a -6 (39:45) goal differential. In their last 10 games, they’re 2W-1D-7L. Classic trap game. Don’t fall for it!

Dortmund II remains in first place with 74 points (22W-8D-1L) and a goal differential of +54 (75:21). They are also 7W-3D-0L in their last 10, with a four-game win streak and 18 game unbeaten streak going for them. Rot-Weiss Essen won their game, so the gap is still nine points, with Essen having one game in hand.

Stats from kicker.de and fussball.de