"When we pass the midfield line, which I call
the creativity line
, that's when we start to show individual talent and quality," says Mateu Morey.
“Because it is the area where you have to create new things.
And that's where we have Reus, Haaland, Sancho, Reyna ... players who do that perfectly and stand out in one-on-one.
That gives us advantages ”.
Barça's youth squad signed by Borussia Dortmund in 2019, Morey, 20, points out the dilemma of the team that on Wednesday night will jump to Sánchez Pizjuán (9:00 p.m., Movistar) to play the eighth of the Champions League: deployed in attack is fearsome, but for that, you must first overcome the organizational mess that corrodes you from behind.
The first
hurdle
is his coach, Edin Terzic.
The hesitant employee who until December worked in the quarry, promoted to the first bench after the dismissal of Lucien Favre, has been less inclined to give flight to his attackers than to protect the head of his rear, Captain Mat Hummels.
To do this, he has assembled a double Anglo-American pivot —Bellingham and Delaney— that until now has not stood out in anything other than a lack of imagination.
Terzic has led Dortmund in 12 games with a record of six wins, two draws and four losses.
To the perplexity of the fans of the richest club in the Bundesliga after Bayern, the board decided to back him up against the evidence.
In full spiral of deterioration in the game appeared the figure of Hummels, vicar of the sports director Michael Zorc: "Since Terdzic arrived we have improved a lot in many ways."
Slow as he is in his twilight stage, Hummels thanked the coach for covering him with the protective filter of the double pivot, even at the cost of weighing down his teammates in attack.
Only when he learned that Terzic's hours were numbered, and that he would be replaced in June by Marco Rose, did the captain become more critical.
Timely after the 1-1 against Hoffenheim in another disappointing game, Hummels said last Saturday that Dortmund split: “The team broke down in midfield because of our desire to go on the attack;
because some go up and others stay ”.
"Terzic likes 4-2-3-1," Morey admits, "but if we have to play 4-3-3 there is no problem because we have players of many abilities who adapt very well to different positions."
Morey is one of the most promising right-backs in the Spanish quarry.
In 2019 he went from Barça B to join the first team of the German club.
There he competed with Achraf first and then with Meunier, two of the best specialists in Europe.
This season he has 12 games with the first team.
"Last year I was very lucky to be able to compete with a player like Achraf at his best because I was able to learn a lot," he says.
“Others would value it as a disgrace.
For me, being able to compete with the best is something very positive ”.
"I was very surprised"
"When a team is in a negative dynamic, the details that incline luck play against it," he says, about the Dortmund crisis.
“That is changed based on work, ambition, not lowering the arms and fighting each ball as if it were the last.
If you do that, the results will come, especially in a team like this, where we have some of the best players in the world.
If you combine work with talent, the combination is always good.
I think we arrived prepared for the game with Sevilla ”.
In the absence of order, the competitive rehabilitation of Dortmund goes through what Morey calls “individual talent”.
At the head of this species is the number
nine
: “I was very surprised with Erling Haaland from day one because he is a born winner.
You see him in the confined spaces of the rounds and discover that there he handles the same as if he were 100 meters.
He has brought that spark of ambition to the team that makes him a leader on the field.
I think it will mark an era ”.