It was only Friday evening. 16 of 18 Bundesliga clubs still had the 21st matchday ahead of them, when the birthday boy Niclas Füllkrug, 31, took advantage of the moment and Borussia Dortmund’s 3-0 win against SC Freiburg for a very temporarily interpreted statistic: “We “We have now collected 13 points from five games – I don’t think there is any other Bundesliga team that has achieved that.”
Füllkrug was right for the moment, no other Bundesliga team got 13 points in the first games of the new calendar year, but he omitted the fact that Dortmund were the only top team to play their fifth game in 2024 a day earlier, and that with Bayer Leverkusen and Werder Bremen, two other teams that also had 13 points from five games, will not play their fifth game until Saturday.
Anyone who likes to enjoy the happiness of the moment was happy to follow Füllkrug’s emotional argument. On Friday evening and certainly until late Saturday afternoon, Dortmund were actually the most effective Bundesliga team of the new year, and they celebrated themselves as such. “That was our best performance in months,” said sports director Sebastian Kehl. “That was definitely our best performance in 2024,” said coach Edin Terzic.
This kind of unbridled exuberance has not been heard too often this season from BVB, who often struggle even when they win. This time, however, they won in an unusually casual way against Freiburg, who were all too harmless, and because the Dutch winger Donyell Malen had already scored his two goals in the first half and given a reassuring 2-0 half-time lead, he emphasized this above all else afterwards: “We had it right from the start to the required intensity and scored the goals at the right time.” The fact that his goal to make it 1-0 in the 16th minute was also the 3,500th Bundesliga goal in Borussia Dortmund’s history fit into the celebrated image.
Kehl and Füllkrug appeal to Malen to deliver more consistent performance
Malen would have been easily identified as ‘Player of the Game’ if Füllkrug hadn’t snatched this award from under his nose by not only giving him the two goals (16th and 45+7th), but also the third to make it 3rd The final score was :0 (87′). This resulted in three so-called scorer points. Now the question was which was better: two goals or three scorer points with two assists. Füllkrug found: “Assistments are almost on a par with goals for me because they help the team extremely.” The national striker has scored ten goals and prepared seven so far this season. Malen has nine goals and two assists.
The Dutchman (market value around 30 million euros), who was said to be thinking of leaving during the winter break but for whom there was reportedly no offer, received a lot of praise after the win against Freiburg, which, however, turned out to be a demand upon closer inspection. Painting is seen as an unstable performer, as an artist with many good days, but also bad days. Füllkrug said: “Donny made the right decisions in many situations today and was extremely hard-working; it helps us a lot when he has a day like that and if he does that consistently, he is a very important player for us.”
Donyell Malen scores the second goal in the comfortable win against Freiburg.
(Photo: Leon Kuegeler/Getty Images)
Sports director Kehl saw it similarly: “Donny had a lot of good phases in the first half of the season, but then he perhaps experienced a little bit of fluctuation himself with the team.” Against Freiburg, Kehl praised, “he played an outstanding game and was dangerous in every action.” If the winger, who came two and a half years ago from Dortmund’s upcoming Champions League opponent PSV Eindhoven, had succeeded in everything on Friday evening, he would have even had six scorer points, but he missed two more good chances to score, and Julian Ryerson and Marco Reus missed two good ones Painting templates are also yours. Nevertheless, Kehl noticed: “Donny laughed a lot on the pitch, that’s a good sign.”
Dortmund’s Spanish full-back Mateu Morey also laughed on Friday evening, coming on as a substitute in the 88th minute and celebrating his first competitive appearance since May 1, 2021 after a break of more than two and a half years due to two consecutive serious knee injuries. After the absence from the audience due to Corona, these were actually the first minutes in front of fans for the 23-year-old in the BVB jersey, and it was always the same for the Mallorcan native since he moved from FC Barcelona’s A youth team to BVB in the summer of 2019 Due to injury-related absences, it was only BVB’s 30th competitive game. The spectators celebrated him all the more after the final whistle, and on an evening of many heroes, coach Terzic concluded: “Mateu is the secret hero of today’s game.”