Road to Dortmund | BVB Fan Blog

This has been a good week for us, Borussia Dortmund fans. I want to open with a statement like this because the season so far didn’t give us too many opportunities to feel excited. Two games played. Two clean sheets. Advancement to the Champions League round of 16 and a massive win against Union Berlin in Bundesliga. Pretty solid.

Here’s a bit more. Across the two games BVB had expected goals (xG) 1.86 vs 0.34 in Sporting game, and 4.47 vs 0.27 against Union, only allowing single shot on goal in each game to go along with sound discipline (3 yellow cards across two games). This marks significant improvement in areas that have been among the most problematic and is a positive indication that this team is not done yet. Next step is consistency.

The second leg of Sporting tie in the Champions League wasn’t amazing. 

Thanks to a convincing win in the first game, BVB played against a Sporting side that didn’t push back hard enough to pose a serious threat during the 90 minutes. Sporting had a few moments where it seemed like they could try to make something out of this game, but they were few and far between to generate anything of substance. BVB controlled the game and was unlucky not to score a brace at least. Defense was solid, although not tested too much, while in the offense – decision making in the final phase still wasn’t great. Sabitzer had a solid shot to test Sporting goalkeeper Silva in the first half. In the second, BVB gradually stepped up and added a nice shot from distance by Svensson and a great chance by Reyna after a superb pass from Beier. Oh, and Guirassy missed a penalty after yet another run by Adeyemi to open up Sporting’s defense. Overall this was a good performance that should serve as a solid base for the Union game on the weekend – maybe the fact the team didn’t win could be a sneaky good thing, to keep our players on their toes against a motivated Union team. This was a final note I wrote down after the Sporting game.

The Union Berlin game is (another one) from the series of Bundesliga must wins. 

The team has to start climbing up in the standings at some point, right? Now at the time of reading this, we all know how the game turned out, 6:0 win. A massive, statement win and, hopefully, ultimate confidence boost for the players. And referring back to the stats, especially the xG, it is excellent to see that the team actually delivered performance to back the score up. Although, to be fair to Union as well, this wasn’t a 90 minute dominance by BVB. Initially, Dortmund started quite sloppy, speed wasn’t there, and in general it had a making of a recently typical ‘not bad, not great’ Borussia Dortmund game. A one, also typical to this season, resulting in a disappointing loss. But from about mid-first half, there were glimpses of strong fundamentals making a comeback into team’s overall execution, the movement forward just looked way better while maintaining control from the back. Something clicked, and this is also the part of the game when BVB created a few chances and started to apply pressure on Union, which then resulted in the 1-0 goal – which, while a lucky bounce by all means, was a result of a series of smart plays. Second goal by Guirassy was then a reward for strong effort and good positioning. 2-0 going into the break and solid play sounds great but I’ve been let down way too many times to feel comfortable about the result yet. 

To start the second half, Union showed some life and fight but never really gained control or sustained pressure – also credit to BVB defending. At an hour mark things started to happen for the team and just watching them play, I begun to gain confidence that this is a game which we end up winning. Dortmund completely took over the game and started generating chances, but it wasn’t until the 75th minute that Guirassy scored to make it 3-0. So for 75 minutes this was a 2-0 game, which is quite important in context of evaluating the game as such. But then floodgates opened and it seemed like every cross Pascal Gross sent into the box had something magical about it – he closed the game with 4 goal assists, playing a crucial role in Guirassy getting a 4 goal game of his own. Beier’s goal was a cherry on top but also a reward for superb performance and hopefully confidence boost for him to take into next games. I’m a firm believer that BVB does have something special with Maxi Beier in the long run. 

I also want to mention Adeyemi who, at times, was pretty much everywhere, doing what he does best when he’s on – creating havoc in opposition’s defense with his speed and aggression. We also haven’t seen this kind of game from him in a long time so it was definitely encouraging.

Those of you who watched the game I think will anticipate what comment comes next – yes, Gio Reyna wasn’t that good. And didn’t, yet again, make anything for himself out of getting a rare start. And I’m afraid he won’t be getting many more chances with Chukwuemeka now in the mix, who showed great movement, silky smooth touches and imaginative passing in the few minutes he got so far since coming on loan from Chelsea. I have also been highly critical of Marcel Sabitzer’s performances during this season, and still consider him the most regressed performer between current and previous seasons, but he played a good set of games against Sporting and Union, so give credit where it’s due.

Over that last week, these games between themselves had enough to fill me with decent dose of optimism for what’s to come next. It is optimism, or rather hope perhaps, based on a few good games coming after 20 or so games of inconsistency and disappointment. We’re not out of the woods yet, far from it. But this positive trajectory in performance, on back of return to strong fundamentals is, without doubt, a reason to believe this team is indeed not done or finished yet.

So yes, this has been a good week to be a BVB fan.