All about the next opponent: Interview with Dortmund-Fan Nick | OneFootball

So many unsett­led scores: Borus­sia Dortmund’s visit to the Neckar­sta­di­on next Sun­day car­ri­es a spe­cial signi­fi­can­ce after last sea­son and the sum­mer trans­fer win­dow. Befo­re the match, we spo­ke with BVB fan Nick from the blog Any Given Weekend about the situa­ti­on with the Cham­pi­ons League fina­lists.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo Nick, and thank you for taking the time to ans­wer our ques­ti­ons. BVB star­ted both cup com­pe­ti­ti­ons with a win, most recent­ly with a 3–0 vic­to­ry in Bru­ges on Wed­nes­day evening. In the Bun­des­li­ga, the­re have been vic­to­ries against Hei­den­heim and Frank­furt and a draw in Bre­men. How satis­fied are you with the start of the sea­son?

Nick: Hel­lo Lenn­art! In terms of results, the sea­son has star­ted well. There’s not much to say about the straight­for­ward cup match, but seven points in the league and a 0–3 away win in the Cham­pi­ons League are defi­ni­te­ly some­thing to be proud of. Howe­ver, in terms of play, there’s still quite a way to go befo­re rea­ching the desi­red level, as we saw in Bru­ges, despi­te the clear result.

Fifth place last sea­son was the worst finish sin­ce the 2014/2015 sea­son. What did that trig­ger at the club, asi­de from Edin Terzic’s resi­gna­ti­on?

That fifth-place finish, which under dif­fe­rent cir­cum­s­tances wouldn’t have been enough for Cham­pi­ons League qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on, cer­tain­ly stir­red things up. The cour­se of the sea­son defi­ni­te­ly con­tri­bu­ted to the res­truc­tu­ring of the sport­ing lea­der­ship, with Ricken and Mislin­tat coming in. Bes­i­des Sahin, the­re are new faces on the coa­ching staff, and the trans­fer win­dow was lively. Ever­yo­ne, inclu­ding the fans, is now pro­ba­b­ly awa­re that BVB is no lon­ger gua­ran­teed to finish at least second.

Terzic’s suc­ces­sor is BVB legend Nuri Şahin, who was alre­a­dy part of the coa­ching staff in the second half of the sea­son. How do you assess the decis­i­on to appoint him, and how does he have the team play­ing this sea­son?

I gene­ral­ly have a healt­hy dose of skep­ti­cism when Borus­sia brings back for­mer play­ers or staff mem­bers. It appli­es to both play­ers and other offi­ci­als. The so-cal­led “BVB DNA” isn’t neces­s­a­ri­ly a bad thing, and the idea of a BVB fami­ly that wel­co­mes back its “child­ren” is nice, but in Dort­mund, it’s often over­play­ed, with a “It’ll work out becau­se they’re one of us” atti­tu­de. So Nuri has to pro­ve hims­elf to me first. He wants to make the game more attrac­ti­ve, move the ball for­ward fas­ter, and he some­ti­mes has the attack­ing play­ers press high. But so far, it’s only work­ed to a limi­t­ed ext­ent, and his attempts with a back three, whe­re all of the top cen­ter-backs play, are a bit ris­ky per­son­nel-wise.

Whe­re are your cur­rent strengths and weak­ne­s­ses?

We curr­ent­ly have seve­ral attack­ing play­ers fin­ding form: obvious­ly Git­tens, but also Adey­e­mi, and now Gui­ras­sy has joi­n­ed. We’re also wai­ting for Juli­en Duran­ville to be fit for an exten­ded peri­od. It’s the indi­vi­du­al qua­li­ty of the­se play­ers — in dribb­ling or sprints — that can help us when things aren’t cli­cking coll­ec­tively. Of cour­se, we also have a gre­at goal­kee­per, and Pas­cal Groß is seen as a key play­maker in mid­field. One of the unre­sol­ved weak­ne­s­ses is BVB’s dif­fi­cul­ty in crea­ting dan­ger near the box when the oppo­nent defends com­pact­ly. While we tend to see more Black-and-Yel­lows in the final third than under Ter­zic, we’re also more vul­nerable to oppon­ents’ quick coun­ter-attacks.

After a dis­ap­poin­ting last sea­son, what are your expec­ta­ti­ons for the cur­rent one?

I expect a bet­ter finish, ide­al­ly ahead of RBL. In the cup, it’s time to head towards Ber­lin again — though, of cour­se, you need some luck with the draw. Both goals requi­re BVB to play more good matches than we’ve seen late­ly.

The con­nec­tions bet­ween VfB and BVB are num­e­rous. Let’s start off the pitch: In the spring, our for­mer sport­ing direc­tor Sven Mislin­tat retur­ned to Dort­mund, though in a dif­fe­rent role. Rumor has it the­re was some inter­nal fric­tion during the sum­mer trans­fer win­dow. What’s your take on his appoint­ment?

For Sven Mislin­tat, I feel the same as I do about Sahin. Sure, Mislin­tat was a key fac­tor in the suc­cess of the Klopp era and was still invol­ved in some important trans­fers during the Tuchel years. It was also right to bring in someone with expe­ri­ence along­side Sebas­ti­an Kehl. But did it have to be such an alpha figu­re like Mislin­tat? I could have ima­gi­ned a “trans­fer nerd” working more behind the sce­nes.

Some suspect that Borus­sia, at Mislintat’s promp­ting, signed two VfB play­ers: Ser­hou Gui­ras­sy and, sur­pri­sin­gly for us, Wal­de­mar Anton, com­ple­ting a quar­tet of ex-VfB play­ers along­side goal­kee­pers Gre­gor Kobel and Alex Mey­er. How are Anton and Gui­ras­sy per­forming so far, and how satis­fied are you with the sum­mer trans­fers over­all?

On the one hand, obvious trans­fers like taking a rising star from a league rival don’t spark much ima­gi­na­ti­on. But of cour­se, we’ve brought in a lot of qua­li­ty with Gui­ras­sy and Anton. Pas­cal Groß was cer­tain­ly a more sur­pri­sing trans­fer. I would’ve lik­ed one or two more sig­nings like that. Other­wi­se, we streng­the­ned whe­re nee­ded. Left-back still doesn’t seem like it’s been per­fect­ly sol­ved. I haven’t been able to watch all the matches in full, but Anton seems solid enough to fit into Dortmund’s defen­se wit­hout any issues. Gui­ras­sy had a lon­ger appearance against Hei­den­heim whe­re he didn’t score but hel­ped us through his work rate and pre­sence. His inclu­si­on opens up more space for other play­ers; it chan­ges the dyna­mics of BVB’s game. In Bru­ges, he had a shorter, quie­ter appearance but calm­ly con­ver­ted a penal­ty at the end, which was refres­hing to see.

Can you under­stand the unrest in Stutt­gart over Anton and the likely less-than-warm recep­ti­on he’ll get on Sun­day?

I can some­what under­stand the fuss over Wal­de­mar Anton. His con­tract exten­si­on, accom­pa­nied by flat­te­ring words, wasn’t that long ago. It doesn’t sit well with loy­al fans when a play­er trans­fers within the league short­ly after­ward. But some of the outra­ge seems a bit over­blown to me — unfort­u­na­te­ly, it’s not­hing new in today’s pro­fes­sio­nal foot­ball.

Matches bet­ween Stutt­gart and Dort­mund are always clas­sics. Do you sen­se a spe­cial atmo­sphe­re in Dort­mund ahead of Sunday’s match due to the trans­fers and the three emo­tio­nal but unsuc­cessful duels for BVB last sea­son?

Many will likely see VfB as a bench­mark to gau­ge how far the team’s rene­wal has come. A win in Stutt­gart would be a state­ment, and even a draw with a good per­for­mance would be respec­ta­ble given last sea­son. There’s been a cer­tain rival­ry bet­ween the more acti­ve fan groups of both clubs in recent years. Tho­se less inte­res­ted in that will pro­ba­b­ly remem­ber the thril­ling matches of the past (befo­re last sea­son), which didn’t all end posi­tively for Dort­mund but, as you said, beca­me clas­sics. I think anti­ci­pa­ti­on will pre­vail.

Final­ly, your pre­dic­tion for the lin­e­up and result?

Pos­si­ble lin­e­up: Kobel — Ryer­son, Süle, Schlot­ter­beck, Ben­se­bai­ni — Can, Groß — Adey­e­mi, Brandt, Git­tens — Gui­ras­sy. My pre­dic­tion: An enter­tai­ning 2–2, with a late BVB equa­li­zer.

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Lars Baron/Getty Images