The Set: Borussia Dortmund 1–0 Köln

I missed the first round of games on fam­ily vaca­tion. While I still have the Gladbach-Bochum game on DVR to watch for fun, my first game of the sea­son, albeit delayed, was Dortmund’s 1–0 vic­tory at home over Köln. It was a thor­oughly deserved vic­tory where Dort­mund put the Billy Goats to the sword and could have eas­ily won by half a dozen goals, so com­mand­ing was their dis­play. They held pos­ses­sion for 58% of the match, had 16 cor­ners to Köln’s 1, out-shot them 24 to 7 with 11 shots on goal. Soldo’s men had no shots on goal. It was a mis­lead­ing 1–0 vic­tory, where the vis­i­tors looked unlucky to have given away an own goal. That was hardly the case, with Dort­mund prov­ing that they have the defense and mid­field to push for a Euro­pean slot this year.

Seven Notes About the Match

1. An argu­ment could be made that Köln were with­out their biggest stars. How­ever Geromel’s absence was neg­li­gi­ble, as McKenna and Mohamad were two of the best play­ers on the pitch on the day. Podol­ski would have made lit­tle dif­fer­ence as the mid­field is where Köln lost the game. Novakovic would have pro­vided a long ball tar­get, but still it was the selec­tion of Maniche, Chahi and Sanou where the prob­lems lay as they were woe­ful on the day, inca­pable of pass­ing the ball or hold­ing it for more than two seconds.
2. The real issue was that Soldo got his tac­tics wrong. Last year Daum would not play Petit as a holder but as a con­duc­tor, with Pez­zoni and Brosin­ski behind him. He tried to slot Maniche into that role, who was clearly not up to a full game. He was absent for most of the game and looked ready to keel over at any sec­ond. Mean­while Sanou was quickly subbed for Ehret, who was a tidy player on the left last year. And markedly absent for Chahi was Vuci­ce­vic, who they let go, but was a solid player last year. So either Soldo needs to reeval­u­ate his tac­ti­cal plan or find the right play­ers for a 4–2-3–1, which he looks set to play.
3. This brings us to the third issue: Why did Soldo take off Petit for Matic? Köln were hav­ing mas­sive issues with get­ting the ball and retain­ing it. Tak­ing off the one guy up to the fight was lunacy when you had another guy in Maniche who wasn’t phys­i­cally ready for a full game
4. Hum­mels stint as a DM at the Euro’s seem to have made an impres­sion on Klöpp as he brought the young center-half in late with the lead to pair with Sahin in a double-6 to lock down the game. It worked quite effectively.
5. Less effec­tive was Haj­nal on the wing. Absent except for cor­ners in the first half, it wasn’t until Klöpp changed shape to a 4–1-3–2, let­ting Sahin set behind Haj­nal, Kuba and Tinga, that we started to see the mad Mag­yar. He began to drift to the cen­ter and cause havoc for the Köln defense. It’s a very Eng­lish move, to make a clas­sic #10 into a wing player, but it is an option that Klöpp will have to look at unless he moves to a 4–5-1 as Kehl and Sahin are both too good to sit.
6. Bar­rios is going to have to toughen up. He wasn’t bad, but he did shy away from the phys­i­cal­ity of the play and if Ger­man defend­ers start to sense that he’s timid, he will be a mas­sive waste of money. He’s only been in Ger­many for two weeks, so I do think he will adapt. But the sooner the bet­ter as his most shin­ing moment was a header that just missed when he lost his mark. Had McKenna stayed with him, he would haven’t tried for that ball, in my opinion.
7. The MOM would have to go to Köln’s physio. Early in the first half, keeper Fayrd Mon­dragon asked to be subbed after pulling a mus­cle in his leg. It looked to be a ham­string; how­ever, we don’t know as they kept Mon­dragon on. He limped admirably through the first half, only to return in the sec­ond and play out-of-his-skin. 11 saves was almost enough to earn his side an unde­served point, but an errant leg my Matic was too much for the Colom­bian shot-stopper.
   
   GD Star Rat­ing
   load­ing…
   The Set: Borus­sia Dort­mund 1–0 Köln, 5.0 out of 5 based on 2 ratings

   Tagged as: Fayrd Mondragon, Jürgen Klopp, Lukas Podolski, Maniche, Mats Hummels, Nuri Sahin, Petit