Tactical Analysis: BVB

I have just returned from my sum­mer hol­i­days, where I had a lovely respite from footie. How­ever, here we are with the sea­son two weeks deep and I am behind. But I am afforded the lux­ury of mak­ing my tac­ti­cal analy­sis on two games rather than one, which can be useful.

I decided to spend the first two weeks on BVB’s road and home opener. I was excited to see a few things from these encoun­ters: 1) Rene Adler (injured); 2) Renato(disappointing); 3) Sub­otic; and 4) Jurgen’s impact(troubles ahead). Of those four things, the only one that panned out was Sub­otic. What I should have been excited about, other than the man of a thou­sand nation­al­i­ties, was Kuba, Kuba and Kuba.

But make no mis­take about it, Dort­mund are back and on the verge of some­thing great. It might be next year before they crack the top three, but I am con­vinced that depth is the only thing hold­ing them back from com­pet­ing with Werder, Schalke and Bayern.

Defense

It’s funny that they allowed 3 goals in two games, and yet I found that I have rarely been as impressed with a defense as I was with theirs. But let’s note that this is the youngest defense I have ever seen at this level. Com­bine the age of all four of their back line and they are still younger than most defend­ers at AC Milan. Their defense con­sists of a cen­tral pair­ing of two teenagers, Hum­mels and Sub­otic, a 20 year-old left back, Schmelzer, who replaces an icon and a sud­denly old right back in 24 year-old Rukav­ina. And it’s work­ing. Nobody should be able to build their spine around two 19 year olds, but it is just the thing that Klopp has done. And it’s bril­liant. Sub­otic is already look­ing like the best defender in the Bun­desliga. He makes good deci­sions, car­ries the ball out well, is will­ing to get stuck in and is very mature. It’s funny watch­ing the dif­fer­ence between the aged super­star Lucio, who seems to be in a con­stant state of angered fran­tic defend­ing and the kid who is a bea­con of tran­quil­ity. Hum­mels is look­ing like the sec­ond best, and has phe­nom­e­nal orga­niz­ing skills and posi­tional aware­ness. They are prone to lapses in judg­ment, such as when they were caught flat-footed on Bayern’s goal, but that is an age thing. If they are this sound at 19, when they hit 24 they are going to be world-beaters.

Let’s give credit to Sebas­t­ian Kehl for this too. His tena­cious work in front of them pro­vides them with ster­ling cover. In addi­tion it allows Haj­nal the free­dom to do what­ever he pleases.

Attack

When Liv­er­pool was rumored to be after Kuba, my first instinct was “why?” He had a pretty dicey first year, but obvi­ously he has set­tled. He has been the most impres­sive player in the league in the first two weeks of the sea­son. He tore apart both Bayer and Bay­ern, cre­at­ing two goals, infi­nitely more chances and scor­ing one. He has pace, and can thread a cross. He’s work­ing sub­limely with Nel­son Valdez, who him­self seems to be finally set­tled in Ger­many, and he and Haj­nal are already start­ing to gel, which is a great sign. In addi­tion, Kuba is a ter­rific defender. He really helps to keep Dort­mund’s left side safe, and most attacks by Bayer and Bay­ern came down the right chan­nel, espe­cially as games wore on.

With Valdez look­ing the part, the ques­tion becomes who can part­ner him. With Mladen Pet­ric off to Ham­burg, Dort­mund are hop­ing that Klopp can repli­cate his magic and turn Zidan into a com­pe­tent for­ward like he did at Mainz. Klimow­icz is a super­sub and showed his lim­i­ta­tions as a starter in the open­ing game of the sea­son. Frei’s return will be a boon. There seems to be both poten­tial weak­ness and strength in their for­ward line, so time will prove which it will be. I per­son­ally think Valdez is going to finally live up to expectations.

Over­all

A rea­son­able expec­ta­tion out of the first two games (con­sid­er­ing they hadn’t won an open­ing match since Rea­gan was in office) would have been 1 point. The fact that they have four after two tough games puts them in a sound posi­tion. They need to learn to close out a game bet­ter, as they have allowed late goals in both games. Also we will need to see how they respond to a deficit.

I ranked BVB mid-table, as I felt that they would improve over last sea­son, but Klopp would need some time to build a cohe­sive unit. He seems to have done that already. It’s too early to pass judg­ment, but from what I have seen, they are strong enough to actu­ally con­tend for Europe this year. To make a leap beyond, they will need a keeper and an improve­ment on Kruska on the left. Oth­er­wise some depth to allow them to cope and they are a side of immense poten­tial. After doing every­thing I could to avoid their games last year, I am look­ing for­ward to watch­ing them this repeat­edly year.

It looks like the dark days for BVB are over. I hope this isn’t a false dawn.

Tagged as: AC Milan, Alexander Frei, Antonio Rukavina, Bremen, Diego Klimowicz, FC Bayern München, FC Schalke 04, Hamburger SV, Jürgen Klopp, Kuba, Leverkusen, Liverpool, Lucio, Marc-Andre Kruska, Marcel Schmelzer, Mats Hummels, Mladen Petric, Nelson Valdez, Neven Subotic, Renato, Rene Adler, Sebastian Kehl, Tamas Hajnal