A loudspeaker truck drove through the streets around the Leipzig stadium on Friday evening in order to mobilize as many of the residents as possible for a big cause. One urgently needs to defend oneself now, otherwise the final ruin threatens, everyone would be needed. That sounded martial and somehow it sounded pretty disoriented.
A coordinate system often helps to reorient yourself. The following is outlined for the two major events that shaped Saturday in Leipzig: The abscissa (that is the axis from left to right) shows the “lateral thinkers” who dominated the center of Leipzig, but without even the slightest idea to develop a constructive game idea. On the ordinate (that is the axis from bottom to top), however, the idea and implementation of the vertical soccer game by coach Jesse Marsch and his Leipzig team are to be entered.
When RB 2: 1 against Borussia Dortmund, 43,429 spectators – and thus more than ever since a recent renovation at a home game – experienced an astonishingly desolate BVB, especially in the first half – and an aggressive, energetic Leipzig team at the In addition to the coach march, a player in particular regularly attracts a bright cone of stage lights.
Just a few seconds after the kick-off, Christopher Nkunku appeared for the first time in front of the Dortmund gate and stepped on Manuel Akanji on the foot, which should have been yellow, but looking back was also a first small greeting: Hello, you will get it with me today to do. And how Dortmund then got to do with Nkunku!
Unstoppable: Christopher Nkunku, pursued by Dortmund’s Marin Pongracic.
(Photo: Annegrit Hilse / Reuters)
Goalkeeper Kobel was initially able to parry against the French (13th), but in the 29th minute Leipzig implemented the idea of the vertical thinker Marsch for the first time impressively. After tentative build-up by Adams and Gvardiol, the latter played an outstanding low pass. Nkunku took it, turned a lap around Kobel with astonishing calmness, readjusted the ball calmly – and punched more than he shot.
It was again Christopher Nkunku who led Leipzig in those shining minutes that began again after a good hour. At first he left Thomas Meunier and Mats Hummels like cardboard comrades and spun past them in two Zinedine-Zidane circles, so that one got dizzy for a moment in the stands, but just dizzy and ecstatic. After that, Nkunku may even have shot the left post on purpose to keep the ball in play and to produce a second beauty of the game shortly afterwards.
Because only five minutes later the Frenchman almost started flying again, this time on the left wing. But then only the ball, sailing as smooth as butter, went on the journey. At the far post, Yussuf Poulsen, who was once again consistently hardworking, made it 2-1. In heroism with only two other Leipzigers, Nkunku and Poulsen scored this goal against eight Dortmunders, a quotient that the goal scorer for the interim 1: 1, Marco Reus, correctly calculated after the game (“stupid”).
Goal to victory: Yussuf Poulsen (white jersey) scores 2-1 for Leipzig.
(Photo: Sebastian Räppold / imago)
If the popping of a cork of the Geht-so-Sekt brand Rotkäppchen could have been heard on Sunday in Leipzig’s Besser district of Gohlis, one would have liked to have been there, as the actual neighbors Jesse Marsch and Christopher Nkunku put the label first in American English and then in French tried to pronounce. As far as he knew, said Marsch after the game, Nkunku had signed a lease for his apartment “for three or four years”. He could not understand a better argument for the 23-year-old to stay in Leipzig for a long time. In eleven league games, Nkunku has now scored five goals and assists, and in the Champions League he scored five goals and one assist in four games.
Jesse Marsch needs a lot more victories to really arrive in Leipzig
Marsch said after the game that he had predicted the technically finely controlled and physically angular Nkunku “after three days of preparation” that he would probably be the player who could benefit most from the coaching and system change to more vertical play. It was clever praise because, on the one hand, it was sincere and mainly for Nkunku, and on the other hand, it was also sent to your own Gohlis address.
Jesse Marsch will need a lot more victories like the important one against Dortmund, he has not finally arrived in Leipzig for a long time. His relief, which was clearly noticeable on Saturday, was also easy to understand because Leipzig was already in Frankfurt (1: 1) and against Paris Saint-Germain (2: 2) than was in the result line on the score sheet at the end . “The rewards are not that easy for us,” stated Marsch. That could stay that way after the international break, which can now be tolerated with a clear performance tendency and in the belief that “the team’s mentality and feelings are now very strong”.