Borussia Dortmund suffered another setback in Berlin on Saturday evening. Julian Brandt was somehow emblematic of the two faces of the BVB.
There were just 37 minutes of play on the clocks between the two scenes in Dortmund’s 3-2 defeat at Berlin’s Olympiastadion, and far fewer metres still on the pitch. The one in the 31st minute showed all the skill of Julian Brandt: He took a running start into the free space in the penalty area, got the ball played into his path with a bit of luck, delayed briefly and then lofted the ball over Alexander Schwolow into the goal with a great eye. The other in the 69th minute showed Julian Brandt’s greatest weakness: He laid a pass from Thomas Meunier, only slightly pressed by Santiago Ascacibar 20 metres from goal, into the foot of Jurgen Ekkelenkamp, whose direct cross subsequently led to Berlin’s third goal.
Offensive-playful with lots of pressure and a fine foot vs. defensive-unfocused
Genius and madness combined in the body of the 25-year-old, the magic goal with overview, technique and feeling in the first half, the pre-decisive drop-out with a lack of overview and sloppiness after the break. The fact that he also ran under the ball in an attempt to clear the ball in front of the penalty area in the build-up to the 1:2 was an added bonus. In Berlin, Brandt was somewhat emblematic of the two faces of Borussia, the offensively playful one with a lot of pressure and a fine foot, but also the defensively unfocused one that invites the opponent to score easy goals far too often. “All in all, we’ve been making too many avoidable mistakes in recent weeks, which have led to us losing games or at least not winning them,” also thinks licence player manager Sebastian Kehl.
We see the upward trend in the first half of the season, he has clearly collected more scorer points, but he will not be satisfied with the second 45 minutes yesterday either.
In Berlin, Brandt was not the only Dortmund player who did not cut a good figure when conceding goals, but with none was the discrepancy between the two halves so clear. The fluctuations and defensive lapses were a recurring theme, but in the past first half of the season Brandt seemed much more stable. In general, the midfielder has made a big step under coach Marco Rose, is a regular player again and clearly more capable of scoring goals than in previous seasons. “I think he’s trying to find an explanation for it himself, he’ll deal with that,” says Kehl: “We see the upward trend in the first half of the season, he’s collected significantly more scorer points, but he won’t be satisfied with the second 45 minutes yesterday either.”
Of course, that didn’t just apply to Brandt, but to everyone at the ball club: “We had our sights firmly set on finishing on a good note with 37 points, and up until the half-time break it looked like it. We had a few scoring chances and should have been leading after 15 minutes,” Kehl found. “But then we gave the game away in a very short space of time in the second half, which is very disappointing in the end. “
The defeat against Bayern was followed by three unsatisfactory performances
After the unfortunate defeat in the top match against Bayern Munich, three league matches followed that could be anything but satisfactory: the points from Bochum, which were dropped due to the preponderance of chances, the tired performance against bottom team Fürth and now the lead in Berlin, which was given away far too easily and led to the defeat at the end of the first half of the season.
However, Kehl did not notice a drop in tension after the top match: “I didn’t notice that in the days before Berlin. We didn’t play well against Fürth, but in Bochum and in Berlin we played quite well up to half-time,” Kehl analysed on Sunday, Borussia’s 112th birthday: “Nevertheless, we are now missing many points from the last games. We will need a few days to digest that.” But he is already looking ahead to the new year: “At the start of training, the boys have to be fully focused and learn the lessons from these games, because in Frankfurt we will be directly challenged. “
Nine points now separate us from the leaders, which in view of the Bavarian consistency already seems like an unassailable lead. The cushion to the bottom, especially to fifth place, is already large, especially compared to the situation a year ago. BVB may have to get used to playing in its own league in the first half of the season, as the best of the 17 clubs behind Bayern.
