Champions League
Quick reunion: Dortmund’s respect for “Demon” Haaland
Striker star Erling Haaland (M.) started furiously in Manchester. photo
© Jose Breton/AP/dpa
Exactly four months after his last game for Borussia Dortmund, Erling Haaland meets BVB for the first time. And he could put his ex-club in an awkward situation.
The respect for Erling Haaland’s elemental force seems at least as great at Borussia Dortmund as the joy of seeing the ex-darling again.
“It’s definitely a special encounter,” said sports director Sebastian Kehl before leaving for the Champions League game at Haaland’s new club Manchester City (9 p.m. / DAZN) with a smile: “Erling is in fantastic form.”
“But it’s not just about Erling,” said Kehl: “Manchester are a very strong team overall, are favorites in the group, possibly favorites in the Champions League.” BVB is also “still in the clothes of the Leipzig game”, said Kehl with a view to the 0: 3 on Saturday: “But why shouldn’t we surprise there?” It is encouraging that the three most recently injured offensive players Donyell Malen, Karim Adeyemi and Thorgan Hazard all flew on Tuesday.
Schlotterbeck confident
Optimism is shown in Nico Schlotterbeck, who was Haaland’s opponent and not a teammate last year. “I know how to stop Erling Haaland,” said the national defender confidently at Sport1: “We have to stop the whole club, Erling is the smallest problem.” Schlotterbeck draws his confidence from the 2-1 win with Freiburg against BVB last year, when he eliminated the 22-year-old completely. “In the game I realized how good I can be,” he told Kicker.
Haaland himself has rarely commented explicitly on BVB since the change. The two and a half years with 86 goals and 109 direct involvements in goals in 89 competitive games were a “fantastic time,” he once said. Another time he only explained that the level in Manchester was higher, which the Norwegian was promptly interpreted as a taunt. To this day, he has not commented on the draw at all, not even in front of his 18.3 million followers on Instagram.
But BVB keeper Gregor Kobel, who was injured on Wednesday, is certain “that he will be very, very motivated”. Because of the good time and the somewhat tough finish. But above all because Haaland changed not least to increase the chances of his big sporting dream. “I love the Champions League,” he emphasized these days: “Everyone knows that. And winning it is a big dream of mine.”
Furious Haaland start
The 25 goals that Haaland has already scored in the premier class are a record after 20 appearances. And in general, his start in Manchester was even more furious than that of 2020 in Dortmund. He scored twelve goals in the first eight games. Two and a half years ago there had been eleven. “I love this new routine of talking about Erling and his goals in every press conference,” said city coach Pep Guardiola, who coached FC Bayern from 2013 to 2016, who won six of the last eight games against BVB with Munich and Manchester . “And you get the feeling that he could always score more goals.” Because of this and because of the visual similarity to the character Daemon Targaryen from the series “Game of Thrones”, many people in England call him “Demon”.
But for BVB there is not only a reunion with Haaland and Guardiola. But also with national player Ilkay Gündogan, who went to Manchester from BVB in 2016, and with Manuel Akanji, who changed only two weeks ago. In an interview published on Monday in “Blick”, he said that “things were said about me in Dortmund that were simply not true”. In addition, the performance principle “no longer counted”.
He also gave a motto for the game on Wednesday that sums up BVB’s respect or even fear of Haaland: “You’d rather play with Haaland than against Haaland.”
The expected lineups:
Manchester City: Ederson – Joao Cancelo, Ruben Dias, Akanji, Sergio Gomez – Rodrigo – Gundogan, De Bruyne – Alvarez, Haaland, Grealish
Borussia Dortmund: Meyer – Süle, Hummels, Schlotterbeck – Wolf, Bellingham, Özcan, Guerreiro – Brandt, Reus – Modeste
Referee: Orsato (Italy)