Champions League
Intoxicating BVB evening: How the underestimated Edin Terzic creates a small monument for himself
Keep cheering: Edin Terzic pushed the fans, the team and himself during the big game against Atlético Madrid
© Bernd Thissen / DPA
Edin Terzic is repeatedly criticized at BVB. Many don’t trust him to achieve great success. After the win against Atlético Madrid and reaching the Champions League semi-finals, that should change.
Terzic said right at the start that he was “extremely happy, extremely satisfied and very, very proud of the team and the club.” The opponent who was knocked out of the competition 5-4 in two games was Atlético Madrid, “that’s a big thing for us as a club.” Later, the coach did not forget to point out that Borussia Dortmund had only made it to a Champions League semi-final for the fourth time. “That just shows how special this is.” Of course, Terzic also used this to advertise himself – for good reasons.
Edin Terzic does advertising on his own behalf
In an impressive game, his team sent their opponents home 4-2 and made up for the 1-2 first leg defeat. Striker Niclas Füllkrug found this European Cup evening “magical”, playmaker Julian Brandt spoke of a “great game” and BVB boss Hans-Joachim Watzke spoke of a “big day for all Borussia”.
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It was not necessarily to be expected that this BVB team would now be one of the four best teams in Europe. In the league, Dortmund have so far shown themselves to be a moody diva who often finds it difficult to realize their enormous potential. Terzic’s team is in fifth place in the Bundesliga. That’s not enough for a club that sees itself as number two in Germany.
The turbulent season with shaky to good performances in the premier class and notorious weak phases in the league brought the coach a lot of criticism. Especially at the end of the first half of the season, the doubters who have always considered the 41-year-old to be the wrong choice spoke out: very talented and Borussian through and through, but no one who can lead BVB back to the European top like Jürgen Klopp once did . The BVB management officially saw things differently. Watzke (“We’ll go the route with Edin Terzic for the next few years. Period, over”) and sports director Sebastian Kehl demonstratively supported the coach. To support him, they put ex-professionals Nuri Sahin and Sven Bender at his side. Since then things have been going somewhat better, the fluctuating performances in the league have remained and so have the complainers.
The trainer discreetly emphasizes the extraordinary success
In this eternal discussion, Terzic achieved a liberation by reaching the Champions League semi-finals. At the same time, the game against Atlético was a reflection of the previous season. BVB showed a first-class performance in the first half. The pressing worked, with quick counterattacks and half-length balls from midfield, the Dortmund offensive cracked the Spanish defensive bulwark. The reward was the 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Julian Brandt and Ian Maatsen. Only in the 20 minutes after the break, when Dortmund sat back, did Atlético equalize. But it is one of the miraculous twists of the game that Dortmund played its way out of the mini-crisis. It was fitting that Füllkrug, of all people, who hadn’t scored in nine games, took the lead again with a header and the best player of the evening, Marcel Sabitzer, finally made it 4-2.
At the press conference, Terzic discreetly underlined his own part in the “magical” success, knowing full well that the view of him is always very critical. “I think we did it really well” and that “we shouldn’t make it smaller” than it is. After all, “we managed to score five goals in two games against Atlético. I think that’s something not many teams manage to do.” That had to be said. In the first leg, Terzic had once again given the doubters more ammunition with the line-up because he had gambled away. Instead of bringing in the creative Brandt, he opted for the clearer Felix Nmecha in midfield. He later corrected the misjudgment. With Brandt, BVB got better at the end in Madrid and scored the 1-2 through Sébastien Haller – an important goal to have any chance at all. Terzic later publicly admitted his mistake.
For now, the critics are likely to fall silent. After this “special” evening in Dortmund, Terzic emphasized that his team was now more stable “than in September or November.” That was also a message to the doubters. Last fall, BVB struggled against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League group phase. There was a clear defeat in Paris and they struggled to a draw in the second leg. Now Dortmund will face PSG again in the semi-finals. This time in a knockout game under different conditions. For Terzic it is the next opportunity to prove that he is actually a very good coach.
Sources: Amazon Prime“Picture“The West“