Borussia Dortmund praise Nico Schlotterbeck’s unscripted “set-piece-specialist” performance

In partnership with

Get German Football News

·31 mars 2025

Borussia Dortmund praise Nico Schlotterbeck’s unscripted “set-piece-specialist” performance

Borussia Dortmund’s massively important Bundesliga win yesterday owed everything to two assists from the corner flag from centre-back Nico Schlotterbeck. The BVB central defender found himself rather unexpectedly forced into the role of taking corners from the left due to the fact that fullback Daniel Svensson fell ill prior to the game. Dortmund head coach Niko Kovac’s improvisational experiment worked out perfectly.

Pascal Groß retained responsibility for taking corners from the right while Schlotterbeck took over on the left. Just back from a highly successful international break with the German national team, Schlotterbeck got his name on a league scoresheet for just the third time this season. After garnering assists on match days 12 and 13, the 25-year-old doubled his assist total on the year.

Vidéos OneFootball

Both player and coach had a chance to comment on the decision to place Schlotterbeck in charge of dead-ball services after the match. The 20-times-capped international spoke to DAZN while Kovac explained the decision at the post-match press conference. Kovac kept a steady grin on his face while explaining the decision. Schlotterbeck revealed some additional words of inspiration from his coach.

“We wanted to try out another left-footer,” Kovac noted. “I decided upon Schlotti and he really did a great job in training. Plenty of people were probably wondering and rubbing their eyes in disbelief today, but the result provided answers. Especially for him. He does that really well.” “There were only two left footers after Svensson,” Schlotterbeck said. “Me and Karim [Adeyemi]. The coach told me ‘At Bayern Munich, centre back Holger Badstuber also took corners’. They came to me naturally in training and I tried to hit them as I did in practice.”

Unfortunately for Dortmund, the league win over high-flying Mainz did come with a cost. Schlotterbeck incurred his fifth booking and will be suspended for next week’s league fixture against Freiburg. The question of whether or not Schlotterbeck becomes a regular fixture from the corner flag will have to wait for now.

GGFN | Peter Weis