BVB - Hertha - the wall of Berlin still stands

Wrong Line Up


We lost this match for many reasons.
It all started with Klopp fielding the wrong 11, he should have brought Perisic for either Großkreutz or Kuba. Both were poor, neither of them were in the game at any point, while Perisic managed to create Danger, as in every game he played so far.


Berliner Mauer (wall of Berlin)


Dortmund's major problem is that they don't have an answer for deep-sitting opponents. The reason for that is pretty easy: they never trained these situations, or at least not enough. Dortmund are famous for they quick transmission play and to use their spaces on the counter. But Hertha did what they had to do, they never let this kind of situation happen. Two quick offensive players were enough to score two goals on the counter and after a corner resulting from a counter respectively. And if Raffael would have been a bit more effective and Weidenfeller not as a great goalkeeper as he is, it easily could have been 4-0.


No passion, no glory


I'm most upset about the fact that my beloved Borussia wasn't the Borussia I know. Usually, even if we play bad, we fight, we work hard and play with 100% passion. Nothing of that was to see in the first 80 minutes, until Berlin scored the 2-0. Klopp talked about tempo-variations before the match, but to me it all looked like old age pensioner jogging. If the opponent sits deep, you have move a lot and rotate all the time so you can create spaces and holes where your teammates can pass through. Where we are at the next talking point: passing! I can't remember a game where we had so many easy losses of possession, many passes were played sloppily into an Hertaner's foot. It was too easy to intercept our passes, the receiver just stood there and waited for the ball to come, while the marker (who usually was right behind the receiver) just moved towards the ball and gained possession plus extra free space. The king of dreadful-pass-land was Gündogan, he head a dreadful game without any creative moments or danger creating Ideas, so he was expelled to bench-land at half time. Da Silva was at least a little bit better.


Dear, Jürgen Klopp


Where was Moritz Leitner? Oh, yeah, right on the bench. Awesome. We need more creativity?! Okay, let's throw Zidan in the game, yeah, that'll work. NOT.
Yes, this might be kind of a rant, but I'm still full of burning lava-rage...
Zidan, was a good player, but he is a kind of striker, and he is not famous for his many assists. Not the kind of player you sub in when you are looking for creativity and somebody who can create space and danger out of nothing, like, for example, Leitner.


It's just that easy to beat Dortmund

yellow lines = spaces Dortmund were allowed to use

However we have to pay a huge compliment to Hertha, they defended very well, with a 4-4-1-1 system. They closed the middle very well and forced us to attack over the wings, which was a good plan since Kuba and Großkreutz couldn't leave any mark at all. The middle was very dense, Gündogan and Kagawa were taken completely out of the match by Niemeyer, Ottl, Hubnik and Mijatovic. Bundesliga teams have figured out how to beat Dortmund. A thing Klopp has to work on. For example we need more shots from distance! It can't be that Sven Bender is the only one who shot from distance, and he isn't famous for long-distance shots, at least he struck the bar. But a Dortmund game without a nice shot at the woodwork wouldn't be a Dortmund game, right?

Now the "English" weeks start, maybe it was a very secret test of trying to win a match with only 50%, I don't know. However Dortmund never look good after international breaks and I'm curious how they will deal with the Champions League mentally. Will be a great test for our boys... Let's hope we learn from this defeat and will bring it on again against Arsenal.






HEJA BVB!