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Dortmund's Giovanni Reyna celebrates his opening goal: "We're not going into the season and expect Bayern Munich to become champions, we expect us to be champions"
Photo:
Bernd Thissen / dpa
The question will come up again and again - at least as long as Borussia Dortmund keeps up with Bayern.
Will BVB be able to do better than Bayern this season?
Can he become a master?
Since the Dortmund team drew level with the 3-0 win against Borussia Mönchengladbach on points, it started.
After the game, Lucien Favre was asked whether this was an important sign after Munich's 8-0 win against FC Schalke 04.
It could have been the premonition of those tough, probing questions that prompted the BVB coach to set an example himself.
"Sorry, we're not talking about Bayern. They are the best team in the world," he said.
"Everywhere" the foreman has "so much quality" - and: "If you don't see that, you have a problem. Then you have to change your job."
The assessment should meet with some approval in Dortmund under the current circumstances, also among some players and fans.
That dampens expectations, which had already been scaled down a bit before the season to avoid the annoying questioning.
But the assessment also tells players and supporters: You can work as hard as you want, the others will be better.
It's quite a communication dilemma that Dortmund's coach and club management are stuck in: In view of the many young, exceptionally talented footballers, they could point out that the team still needs time to develop.
But they also know that in Germany one club in particular has the opportunity to keep its players and thus buy time - FC Bayern.
Dortmund is still a training association, albeit on an extremely high level.
In the Westphalian soccer company, they spend a lot of time looking out for the players who will replace the Sanchos and Haalands in the coming years, who in turn will replace Ousmane Dembele and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Jadon Sancho, 20 years old, put Erling Haaland of the same age on Saturday to make it 3-0.
It was the successful combination of the old boys.
The young boys had already made it 1-0: Jude Bellingham, 17, passed.
Giovanni Reyna, 17, met.
The counterattack to 3-0 in the 77th minute rushed past Marco Reus and Julian Brandt, who were ready for substitution on the sideline.
Insane speed, hard to stop
"You are in shape, you have the momentum," said Favre, explaining the lineup of Bellingham and Reyna, to which there would have been experienced and conservative alternatives on the bank.
"Gio Reyna has been performing well for a long time, also in training," added the trainer, who even changed his system for his youthful attack.
Sancho is moving much more into the center than last season.
He oscillates on one position as the second tip next to Haaland and a second "ten" next to Reyna, who also plays either in the center or in the half-space.
The flexible organization, but above all the insane speed of the individual players, makes it difficult for the opponent to stop the Dortmund offensive.
Giovanni Reyna averaged significantly less than half an hour of playing time in his 15 Bundesliga games last season.
But even this number of appearances was astonishing, because Reyna was only signed from the academy of New York City FC in the summer of 2019.
The Dortmunders recognized in Reyna a possible successor to Christian Pulisic, the American compatriot, who has since been sold to Chelsea for more than 60 million euros.
Reyna should get used to the new country and the new club in the U19.
But Favre quickly brought him to the professionals and then mostly changed him there.
"I want to score more goals"
The status should now change more frequently from "Joker" to starting player.
"I want to play more games, score more goals, prepare more goals," he said before the start.
The goals have already been partially met, as he has now scored the first goal in the league in which his father Claudio once played for Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg.
"The American Dream" is what Haaland called his colleague, who should have made his debut this spring in the US national team, for which his father took part in three world championships.
The international matches were canceled due to the corona pandemic.
The preparatory work in the game against Gladbach, which is now in the books for this season, resulted from a penalty in which Reyna was hit a little and fell a little of her own free will.
"Clear penalty," said Favre about a decision that was very questionable.
The coach will probably tell him in the analysis that Reyna previously missed a line that would have been a better option than going into a duel with Rami Bensebaini.
They may then also agree on how the question about Bayern will be answered in the future.
Reyna sees it anyway and said before the start: "We're not going into the season and expect Bayern Munich to be champions. We expect us to be champions. And I think our chances are pretty good."
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