Road to Dortmund | BVB Fan Blog

When asked at the beginning of the Bundesliga season, where the team is relative to its opponents, Niko Kovac mentioned that it takes at least six games to start making initial assessment on where each team is.
If you are BVB and your game #7 is against Bayern in Allianz Arena in Munich, perhaps you make that seven games. So where is the team after seven Bundesliga games and what comes next?

xG vs xGA last season under Niko Kovac BVB was 2.3 vs 1.2 at +1.1 positive difference. This year so far, playing a mix of weaker and strong opposition in 7 Bundesliga games, we’re at 1.7 vs 1.1. This means the team is allowing the same amount of chances in defense but is creating less chances in offense (approx. -25%). As a result the positive difference between expected goals scored and conceded dropped by ~50%, from +1.1 to +0.6. While overall results have been solid, this is something coaching staff needs to address as the team competes across three competitions – challenging (hopefully) for DFB Pokal win and fighting for strong positions in Bundesliga and Champions League.
The stats are also supported by the eye test where it’s pretty visible that most of goals we score is based on individual quality and individual efforts. This could be symptomatic of Kovac’s tactics, but it raises few questions about how sustainable it is and if it allow for sufficient capacity to get positive results out of games through the drops in form or injuries of key players – which we know will happen to some degree throughout the long season across three competitions.

Another interesting stat is that so far all 4 Bundesliga wins came after the team was able to take the lead in first half. One occasion team lost the lead (draw vs St Pauli), one time first half draw ended into full time draw (Leipzig) and last game Bayern took the lead in first and BVB, in spite of producing a commendable effort in second half, did not manage to catch up on the score sheet.
Also, all these wins in Bundesliga were clean sheets. So far every game where BVB conceded even single goal, they dropped points – against St Pauli, Leipzig and Bayern. Team conceded goals in each of their three Champions League games, but managed to get points out of each – thanks to scoring 4 goals in three consecutive matches (first time any team has done this in Champions League I think 🙂
This is interesting in context of last few games where BVB played really poor first half – team was completely overwhelmed and against Bayern, objectively lucky to escape with only one goal deficit after 45 mins. Next game in Copenhagen, the first half performance was far from convincing.
There is actually a lot to be learned from Copenhagen game I think, in spite of positive outcome. How to clean up coverage mistakes leading to the own goal, which was definitely preventable through better positional awareness. Or the second goal conceded at the last minute that was totally unnecessary (…and also a defensive coverage mistake). BVB has now allowed 7 goals in 3 Champions League matches and 3 out of 7 came in 90+ minute – that is something the team absolutely needs to address. It seems that there are still these cases of momentary lapse of reason where a team plays organized, focused and consistent defense for 89 minutes and then, out of nowhere, 2-3 players make mistake at the same time.

So drop in creating offensive chances is one thing but team needs to keep learning how to stay focused and in defense as well.
The way the team plays under Kovac is not spectacular but there is system, deliberation and consistency. Juventus 4-4 game was an outlier, that appears to be clear, as it was immediately followed by 1-0 win vs Wolfsburg and 2-0 win vs Mainz. In both games, even during moments where BVB was not in possession or controlling the flow of the game, you could tell there is confidence and stability. The way the team played once up 2-0 vs Mainz was a clear demonstration of how you do it to kill the game and get a win. It was almost like they came straight out of training session designed to address the mistakes made vs Juventus.

I said many times I really like what Kovac is doing with the team, the stability and direction he has brought to the club. I also have to say that the last few games have demonstrated that this team is very much a work in progress.

For me this has been a start to the season which fills me with optimism. While the team has problems it has to deal with – we have seen two games where the team blew a two goal lead, and there have been some questionable first half performances lately – the team has also been playing efficient and confident football for most part. There are mixed results against strong opponents (Bayern, Juventus), but that was always going to be the case. What BVB struggled with in the recent past is there were way too many hiccups against teams we were absolutely expected to beat. And from that perspective, this season has been solid so far (only exception being game vs St Pauli, which ended with a draw).

Now we have stretch of games coming between last weekend in October and end of November that will provide a clear indication of what this year’s BVB team is really about. DFB Pokal game at Frankfurt, Bundesliga games vs Leverkusen and Stuttgart and Champions League games vs Man City and Villareal, with must-win games vs Koln, Augsburg and Hamburg in between. Four consecutive games between Oct 28 – Nov 8 played away from Dortmund. This will be this season’s first ultimate test.

The team needs to stay tight in defense and respond better when conceding goals, taking games over even in situations when it doesn’t go as planned – this goes to player on the field as much as Kovac and his use of substitutions and tactical flexibility. And with the stretch ahead of us, the mix of quality of opponents and series of away games, will put all of this to test.

Kovac seems to have good control and is implementing his ideas in a way that the players are able to successfully execute – this is the big thing about this team so far. There will be ups and downs, and response to both flying high- and falling low-moments will determine if this is a successful season or not. But it’s been few years since the teams looked this good. Heja BVB.