Nine days before the final against Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund coach Edin Terzic talks about the journey and the opponent
These are the weeks of looking ahead and looking back. After the last Bundesliga match against Darmstadt 98 and the emotional farewell to Marco Reus at home, Borussia Dortmund’s entire focus is on the Champions League final against Real Madrid at Wembley in London in just over a week’s time. It will be Edin Terzic’s first as a coach, but as a fan and employee he was already close in 1997 and 2013.
Terzic remembers
He watched the victorious final in Munich 27 years ago “at a public viewing in my home town”, reports the 41-year-old in an interview on the BVB website: “It was a special day for all Borussians.” The day after, he was at the airport with his brother to welcome the team. And eleven years ago, he was already active as a youth coach and in scouting. “I followed the entire Champions League season from close up. I also had one or two tasks in the area of opponent preparation. I edited a lot of videos of the opponents back then to prepare our players individually. “
So now the next step as head coach in the footsteps of Ottmar Hitzfeld and Jürgen Klopp. “We wanted to get as far as possible. We’ve already done that, we can’t go any further than the final. But now we want to take the final step as well,” he says, giving an insight into the preparations for London and Real Madrid: “For us, it’s about keeping the game in focus alongside all the emotion, the friends and the side show that goes on all around. We are trying to find a very objective approach.” Since making it to the final, the team has asked itself “the question with every decision: How will it help us to be in absolute top form on June 1? “
However, not much will be changed. “We’re trying to do everything that got us to the final the way we’ve always done it – the processes in training and in matches. It’s a little different in terms of organization, but we don’t want to change the approach.” After all, they proved their worth in the Champions League in particular during the wild journey via Paris, Newcastle, Milan, Eindhoven, Madrid and Paris again. “We got better and stronger from game to game. The processes got better and at some point you’re in the knockout games. Of course, the path gets harder and harder from round to round, but it also gets shorter and shorter,” Terzic looks back.
Respect for Real, but: “Anything is possible in a game “
Now the biggest possible challenge awaits. “Real Madrid is the team that has won the Champions League 14 times. Not so long ago it was about ‘La Decima'”, the tenth success in the national championship competition, “and now they’ve already won 14 titles”, says Terzic: “Nevertheless, we know that we’ve earned our way to the final. We respect the fact that a strong team is now waiting for us that has already had this experience several times. But we also know that anything is possible in one game. And this is our chance. In one game, we are capable of beating any opponent. “