The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Dortmund's defeat in Rome: too easy

2020-10-21T05:48:57.007Z


Dortmund loses another away game in the premier class. Many players had a bad evening. With Thomas Meunier, however, doubts are growing: can he really replace Hakimi?


Icon: enlarge

Should give BVB momentum and stability: Thomas Meunier 

Photo: 

Paolo Bruno / Getty Images

The idea was pretty good: Lazio had cut a film that flickered across the two large screens in the Olympic Stadium while warming up before the Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund.

Goals from Ciro Immobile were shown in close rhythm, and since the sound was very loud and the commentator yelled "Immobileeee" after each goal, the Dortmund players were at least acoustically intimidated.

It took a good five minutes after the kick-off before the striker's name was screamed through the stadium again.

Immobile had made it 1-0 against his former club, where he was never happy.

Probably also because in 2014 he was expected to replace Robert Lewandowski in 2014.

Such a burden was not imposed on Thomas Meunier's summer access.

But at least the Belgian international is supposed to replace an Achraf Hakimi, who concealed his defensive weaknesses with a lot of speed and offensive force.

At BVB they hoped that Meunier would bring momentum forward in the right midfield and stability in the back.

The balance of the first few weeks is therefore sobering, because neither one nor the other can be determined.

In Rome, Meunier played a pass before the 0-1, which is forgiven a nervous young player.

But a 29-year-old professional who previously played for Paris Saint-Germain should have seen that his pass was under extreme pressure and had to choose either the safe back pass or the aimless, long pass.

"The first goal was a bad pass. It was too easy," said coach Lucien Favre of the action that led to a sobering 3-1 defeat.

This action also ushered in an evening that confirmed critics in the opinion that Thomas Meunier will hardly help BVB in the coming months.

The Belgian’s pass rate was very bad at just 70 percent, as were his crosses.

The positional play left a lot to be desired, the actions lacked speed and element of surprise.

"Thomas is good for our game. He's good for us both as a guy and with his stability and robustness," said sporting director Michael Zorc at the beginning of the month in order to change the mind of the critics.

After the evening in Rome it will be even more difficult for him to come up with this thesis.

Especially since Meunier missed the goal while standing free after the bad pass that gave BVB the first goal.

That was one of the "five good chances" that coach Favre would later refer to more often.

Much more often, however, he complained that Dortmund were "not good at capturing the ball".

He also named the reasons: "You have to run, you have to fight. We didn't do that well."

"A desolate achievement"

Otherwise, the coach rarely addresses the elementary requirements for a successful game.

The fact that he did it in the Olympic Stadium shows how much the Borussia disappointed - again in an away game in the Champions League.

The unwillingness to run meters for defensive work was clearly visible in Jadon Sancho.

The England international made it even more difficult for Meunier and Lukasz Piszczek, who were positioned behind him.

Erling Haaland alone gave the impression that he understood how to deal with the maximally motivated, but also quite flawed Lazio.

Sebastian Kehl found clear words for the performance of the entire team.

"That was a desperate performance, especially in the first half," said the head of the licensed players department.

Kehl often stands in front of the microphones instead of the sports director when it comes to fathoming performances like the one at the start of the European elite league.

The only thing that will give him hope is that BVB will often improve significantly in the next game.

That would be particularly important to the fans in this case, because the Revierderby against FC Schalke 04 is on Saturday evening.   

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All sports articles on 2020-10-21

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-17T17:10:08.511Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.