Opinion
Only Niclas Füllkrug was there
Why there is (almost) no room for BVB in the DFB squad
Mats Hummels (left) also did not nominate Julian Nagelsmann. BVB will only have one player, Niclas Füllkrug, in the DFB team’s upcoming games.
© Federico Gambarini / DPA
BVB is in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. DFB coach Julian Nagelsmann doesn’t seem to care. Dortmund will only send Niclas Füllkrug to the national team. And that is absolutely right.
With all due respect to Eindhoven’s performance, BVB can’t even bring a game to a controlled end against a Dutch team. The term “dirty” has become part of Dortmund’s DNA. The wit and tactical finesse can only be felt, if at all, in individual actions. BVB is playing within its capabilities under coach Edin Terzic – and this will not have gone unnoticed by national coach Julian Nagelsmann. The decision to nominate only Niclas Füllkrug for the DFB team is understandable – and completely right.
DFB squad (almost) without BVB – receipt for never-ending inconsistency
It was a big surprise when Nagelsmann left practically the entire Dortmund team behind for the DFB games against the Netherlands and France. But if you’re honest, you have to ask yourself the question: “Who should he take with him besides Füllkrug?”
Captain Emre Can? In the past few months he has made a name for himself more often through mistakes than through convincing performances. Niklas Süle? Plays stable, but is still a long way from the necessary EM form. Mats Hummels? Is probably the best in Dortmund’s defense, but regularly languishes on the bench under Terzic. Nico Schlotterbeck? Has made good development this calendar year, but his style of play is risky – if he were to play for the national team, his teammates would have to agree to protect his forays forward. And that can only work through long-learned automatisms, not over a few weeks in training camp.
Salih Ozcan? Is a good Bundesliga player, but currently has no chance against competitors like Toni Kroos, Ilkay Gündogan or Aleksandar Pavlovic. That left the strong, but technically limited Marius Wolf and the two midfield engines Marco Reus and Julian Brandt.
With Reus, the problem is similar to that with Hummels: he also sits on the bench again and again, and his relationship with Terzic, like that of Hummels, is considered tense. Brandt, on the other hand, is the only (German) constant in the BVB squad. But in the attacking midfield he has strong competition from Leroy Sané, Florian Wirtz and Thomas Müller and also still seems physically weak from a severe flu.
Terzic’s style of play hardly offers any opportunities to shine
At the beginning of the season, Terzic expressed the maxim “less sexy, more success”. Many BVB fans see what has become of this as “scaredy football”. When leading, Terzic usually switches defensively in order to get a close result over time. This can make sense against strong opponents, but against teams like Augsburg, Darmstadt or Heidenheim it seems more like a dwarfism of its own. As was the case against Eindhoven, Dortmund were mostly busy pushing the ball forward in the last 20 minutes without controlling the game. This also makes the individual players look bad.
There is no stable system in which BVB exudes security until the end. The situation is different at VfB Stuttgart, for example, who are outdoing Dortmund this season with dynamism, aggressiveness and intensity – everything that black and yellow have stood for in recent years and which has also meant limited players like Kevin Großkreutz or Marcel Schmelzer DFB team were washed up – and they even became world champions.
There is currently no sign of any momentum or peak in form among the German players wearing BVB uniforms. Only Niclas Füllkrug is rightly in the DFB squad. He’s also a long way from the top European league, but he’s scoring his goals and apart from Deniz Undav, he currently has no serious rivals.