Borussia Dortmund’s 0:4 defeat at Ajax Amsterdam reverberates. The hope at BVB is that the right conclusions will be drawn from the memorable evening.
One word was enough for Marco Rose to sum up his state of mind shortly before midnight. “Shit,” was the opinion of the Borussia Dortmund coach after the clear and yet, given the course of the game, almost moderate 4-0 defeat at Ajax Amsterdam. In the memorable 90 minutes beforehand, his team had lacked much, if not everything, that is required at the highest level.
Pace, aggression, variability, joy of play – in all areas, the host operated on a completely different level. Ajax shone, combined, rolled, attacked with and without the ball, came over the wings, through the middle and from the half field. And BVB allowed it to happen, were overwhelmed by up to seven attack-minded opponents in their own final third, ran behind, got caught up in the home side’s pressing and counter-pressing and in the end only had keeper Gregor Kobel to thank for not conceding more goals in the face of a total of 13 mostly top-class opportunities.
The home side were not able to keep the ball out of the net.
The first upmarket endurance test
“That was an object lesson. We were shown our limits against a very, very good team,” Julian Brandt said frankly. If you exclude the match for the Supercup against Bayern Munich (1:3), which was not quite as important despite its competitive and title character, the match in Amsterdam was the first endurance test at a higher international level – and it clearly failed.
Borussia Dortmund still has a long way to go, which cannot be a big surprise in view of a new coach in the summer and many new approaches and ideas. The overall successful start to the season, the promising approaches in some games and the strong offensive make us hopeful, and a single slip-up like the one in Amsterdam does not have to initiate a fundamental discussion – if it remains a slip-up.
The crux will be to draw the right conclusions from the game for the further development of the team. “I think we can use the game well to analyse things,” Rose said late on Tuesday evening. The reappraisal will start quickly, on Wednesday the team had the night off as already planned after the overnight return journey and in view of the great strain.
Brandt: “We have to get to grips with hanging our heads.
It will be about the footballing deficits, but also about body language and defence. Because there was far too little of that on show on Tuesday. “My team has character, they are great guys,” Rose sent out in advance, but demanded: “When it gets difficult, you have to make the thing work. We still have to radiate Borussia Dortmund then.”
And in Amsterdam, that would have meant looking for the definitely available chance to turn the game around even after conceding the second goal. “After the 0:2 we let our heads hang down, even though the game wasn’t completely lost. We have to get a grip on that. That’s an achievement on the pitch, to be in such a state of mind that you’re sharp, and to react properly to setbacks in your head,” thinks Julian Brandt.
Hope remains for a productive defeat, as contradictory as that sounds. The spectacle of Amsterdam should be instructive, at best a step back as a run-up. “Who knows, maybe it will come at a sensible time,” Brandt speculated: “We have to talk about it critically, but on the other hand it’s also an extremely big help for developing further and getting to this level.” BVB will soon be able to prove how quickly this is put into practice: In just two weeks, Ajax will come to Dortmund.
