Crash landing in Lisbon: Grotesque squad planning dismantled BVB in Europe

Crash landing in Lisbon
Grotesque squad planning dismantles BVB in Europe

By Felix Meininghaus, Lisbon

Borussia Dortmund is weighed in the Champions League and found to be too easy. In the bankruptcy against Sporting Lisbon, BVB reveals many deficits. It becomes clear: the squad is not well balanced and cannot compensate for the loss of high performers.

If you dig a little deeper into the Sporting Clube de Portugal, you can learn amazing details. For example, that the club is the only one in the world that has trained two players, Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo, who have been named Player of the Year by Fifa. In addition, in the 1963/1964 season, the 23-time Portuguese champions marked the highest win in European Cup history in a 16-1 victory over Apoel Nicosia and in Fernando Peyroteo in the 30s and 40s, he had a striker who scored 540 goals in 332 games scored, which corresponds to a fairytale rate of 1.6 goals per game.

Of course, that doesn’t matter now, but now there are also good reasons for Sporting to be proud of what has been achieved. For example, that the traditional club in the Champions League survived the group phase and is therefore allowed to post at least 20 million euros in additional income in the money-increasing competition.

In times of the pandemic, in which all professional clubs have to live with significant losses, they would have loved to reap this money at Borussia Dortmund. But the listed football company has been weighed in the actually feasible Group C and found to be too easy. The 1: 3 in Lisbon relentlessly revealed that this team lacks a lot of what is necessary to assert itself in the premier class.

Bad mistakes, superfluous cards

The relegation to the Europa League is logical after a thoroughly flawed performance, afterwards coach Marco Rose didn’t even want to gloss over things: “We conceded goals that were too simple, the opponent was more consistent and uncompromising in the crucial situations.” Rose repeated this statement several times, which allows the reverse conclusion that his team reveals clear deficits in terms of consistency and uncompromising attitude.

Dortmund’s defense chief Manuel Akanji can follow his boss without any ifs or buts: “You just have to play more aggressively against such an opponent,” complained the Swiss international: “That was not enough.” Rose observed that it was “too easy to score goals against us” and captain Marco Reus added: “We keep discussing the same mistakes we make.” In Lisbon, for example, Nico Schulz was allowed to feel addressed, who made a bad mistake before the 0: 1. Or the substitute Emre Can, whose red card was as stupid as it was superfluous, as well as the recovered man marker Dan-Axel Zagadou, who came into the game and shortly afterwards caused a penalty.

Despite such annoying blunders, Rose didn’t like breaking the bar over his staff. “Basically, I’m part of the team,” emphasized the Leipzig-born, who didn’t want to use the many failures of key performers as an alibi: “My God, that’s how it is. Our squad is big enough.”

“Shitty Evening”

Such a point of view honors the coach, but in fact it ignores reality. BVB is not even in a position to compensate for the loss of important players such as Erling Haaland, Mats Hummels and Raphael Guerreiro. De facto – according to the lessons from autumn 2021 – this roster is not composed in a balanced manner. In Lisbon, Schulz, Can, Zagadou, the invisible Reinier, Marin Pongracic and Steffen Tigges were six Dortmunders on the pitch, who at least this evening did not even come close to a level that is necessary to be up in the Champions League Being able to formulate claims.

While things are going according to plan in the league and in the national cup competition for Borussia, the damage caused by the premature end in the premier class is immense. For Rose, the night in Lisbon was “more than bitter. It was our clear goal to hibernate in the Champions League.” Reus’ choice of words was even more drastic. The international said it was a “shitty evening. We’re out, we’re going home empty-handed and that hurts.”

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