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Insights into the defeat of Borussia Dortmund against VfL Wolfsburg

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Insights into the defeat of Borussia Dortmund against VfL Wolfsburg

BVB lost its penultimate Bundesliga game in the 2022 calendar year 2-0 at VfL Wolfsburg. It was not the first time that Dortmund slept through the opening phase of a game against the Wolves and showed after going behind that their own game idea is not far off at the moment. And Borussia can’t blame the football god either. The findings on the BVB bankruptcy.

BVB: Weak initial phase will be punished again

The tactics of the wolves were easy to read from Niko Kovac’s line-up: He wanted to pull BVB’s teeth with fast moves with fast players. Edin Terzic is likely to have warned his team against such situations, and in Karim Adeyemi he also ordered another fast player in his starting eleven – even if Adeyemi is not exactly known for his defensive strengths.

Nevertheless, Dortmund seemed completely taken by surprise by the Greens’ route. It could have rang in the 3rd minute after Jakub Kaminski broke through with a simple combination on the right wing, Gregor Kobel defused against Omar Marmoush. The whole thing was repeated two minutes later before the 1-0 finally resulted from a corner. After less than six minutes, Dortmund deservedly fell behind.

After the game, the black and yellow protagonists struggled with their own stumbling start. “It took a while before we accepted the intense game. But then it was already too late because we were behind,” stated Terzic. Mats Hummels spoke of “five bad minutes at the beginning”, and neighbor Niklas Süle criticized: “We didn’t even see the ball in the first five to ten minutes and got back into play very badly”.

Worse still, it’s not the first time Dortmund have been sleepwalking through the opening minutes of a game this season. “It’s inexplicable,” Süle said angrily, “because it happens very, very often.”

BVB: After falling behind early on, Dortmund is struggling

Dortmund have kept clean and won six times this league season. A win against Frankfurt (2-1) was achieved despite an interim equaliser, while leads were lost against Werder Bremen and 1. FC Köln (both 2-3). And BVB fell 1-0 down on five occasions.

Not too big a sample size, for sure. But it is still striking that Borussia managed to take something with them against SC Freiburg and FC Bayern with late goals – but in the three games in which the 0-1 fell very early, each time without a murmur went down.

BVB: Bundesliga games in which Dortmund trailed 0-1

Gameday Opponent conceded in minute bottom line
2 Friborg (A) 35 3:1
6 Leipzig (A) 6 0:3
9 Bavaria (H) 33 2:2
10 Union (A) 8th 0:2
14 Wolfsburg (A) 6 0:2

Dortmund is not a goal machine in the current season. 23 goals after 14 games are just one more than at VfL Wolfsburg and less than at Werder Bremen or Borussia Mönchengladbach (24 each). BVB is struggling offensively overall, especially when defensively well staggered and organized teams have to play. And that applies twice when you have to chase after an early deficit.

“It’s difficult with the pace they have and the counterattack strength,” analyzed Terzic. All the worse that BVB ran into the open knife at the beginning. And especially away from home, caution should be the top priority anyway, after all things are going particularly badly there (record after seven games: 9 points, 8:12 goals).

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