Road to Dortmund | BVB Fan Blog

The way the season unfolded so far, going into the month of April we knew this is going to be a do or die stretch of games that will dictate whether this team sinks or has it in them to stay afloat and make something positive out of one of the worst seasons in recent history. Before getting into more detail, 3 weeks ago when I published my previous post, BVB were at 11th spot in the Bundesliga, as of today (April 21st) they sit at 7th, 4 points behind RB Lepzig at last Champions League qualification spot. This indicates significant progress, which by all means would be correct. 

Here is a quick view on games during the stretch:

Mainz 3-1: not without problems but overall a hard fought and deserved win against a team that has been bit of a BVB’s nemesis lately.

Freiburg 4-1: A convincing win in a game where the team did not completely dominate felt super satisfying, as if we got one back kind of thing – after so many games lost on odd mistakes and wasted opportunities. Strong game.

Bayern 2-2: While in the end a fair draw, I believe Bayern is actually the one a bit happier with this one all things considered (especially Leverkusen dropping points in this round). Rough start but overall a good game from BVB.

Gladbach 3-2: After a strong performance against Barcelona earlier in the week, I was very disappointed with how the team played across the 90 minutes. I believe Kovac got the tactics right but individually this was not a good game where the team showed very little spark apart from the 5 minutes to end the first half, where they scored all their goals. This was one of those games where the opponent does absolutely nothing throughout the game yet we still somehow conceded two goals.

What is very typical of Bundesliga this year is that most teams just can’t seem to string together a run of wins and everyone takes points from everyone. This makes the league super interesting to watch, because anything can happen (Union-Stuttgart 4-4 after 45 mins to give an example from the most recent weekend). This is bad from BVB’s perspective, because we’re one of those teams, while also good because it’s keeping us in the mix for European qualification with Champions League still a realistic possibility 4 games to go in the season – which just a few weeks back seemed like an afterthought. 

What is good is that it looks like Kovac has now found his best setup with 3-4-3, or 5-3-2 if you will, and improvements in individual performances is very tangible across the lineup.

This team is still prone to way too many defensive mistakes though – as demonstrated by the Champions League Quarter Final performance in Barcelona. Barca absolutely dominated the beginning of the game and the 0-1 score from BVB’s perspective was a good thing in my mind because it gave the team a chance to regroup and come back swinging in the second. Which I felt they did until conceding the second goal – and at this time the team kind of checked out mentally allowing Barcelona to score two more to make it a 4-0 game. What is super depressing is that 3 out of the 4 goals were pretty much a copy paste situation of losing the ball and not being able to come back fast enough with Barca scoring on break. Same situation three times in one half. If this game ended 0-2, I firmly believe BVB would go through because in the second game, the 3-1 score doesn’t do justice to the extent to which BVB dominated Barca. They could, and should, have scored two more, but such is football and BVB’s performance in the first game was a self fulfilling prophecy.

Now out of the Champions League, full focus is on remaining games in the Bundesliga. The team managed to take the first step by beating Borussia Monchengladbach, although as I mentioned above, this was a very mixed bag performance in my book and we’ve also seen Kovac pretty frustrated towards the end of the game on the sidelines.

There are currently 3 teams sitting between BVB and Champions League Qualification – Leipzig, Mainz and freiburg. Leipzig and Mainz have both been struggling with poor form recently and have a pretty demanding set of opponents in their remaining schedule. Freiburg, while not as strong, also has a far easier set of upcoming games.

Leipzig (4): Frankfurt (3), Bayern (1), Bremen (8), Stuttgart (11)

Freiburg (5): Wolfsburg (12), Leverkusen (2), Kiel (18), Frankfurt (3)

Mainz (6): Bayern (1), Frankfurt (3), Bochum (18), Leverkusen (2)

All these teams play at least two of the top 3, Mainz having to face all of Bayern, Leverkusen and Frankfurt, which with their current slip of form gives them the least chance to sneak into the top 4 in my view.

Freiburg I expect to handle their games against Wolfsburg and Kiel. There is a significant gap in quality between Leverkusen/Frankfurt and Freiburg, the question is how motivated Leverkusen will be in this final stretch of games with the title race all but over at this point.

Leipzig is super difficult to read – they can win or lose all of these 4 games, and will likely settle somewhere in between.

When Niko Kovac took over the team as head coach during winter, main goals were set to stabilize the team and get them into the top 4 to secure Champions League football for next season. Watching the team play in the last few months, it is clear the stability and consistency has improved substantially. Results have not always followed, although there is still a solid chance BVB will sneak into the top 4. If it happens it will likely be in the last round of the league and involving a good bit of luck. I have wrote before on how BVB have been the better team in games they ended up losing points. Perhaps now is the time to balance that out and get the results they need. Let’s do it. Heja BVB.