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“It was not a good game from us again. That’s not our ambition. We want to play better, we want to win here, we want to dominate here. But we play too many long balls, have too few good solutions with the ball, we lost duels. Perhaps the Bochum team was simply greedier and more aggressive.” Captain Emre Can’s words after Dortmund’s 1-1 draw with Bochum matched those of his teammates, in a game against a side everyone expects to be in a relegation battle, BVB were the lesser of the two: fewer shots, fewer battles won, fewer ideas. Donyell Malen’s well placed goal in the second half was one of the more beautiful goals of the weekend, but it’s the one stand out moment from a game that was very uninspiring for the black and yellows.
That mirrors the season up until this point though. Granted two league games is not exactly a fantastic sample size, but Borussia Dortmund really had a chance to hit the ground running with fixtures against Köln and Bochum, four points from those games may not seem too bad on the surface. But take into account that they dropped points against Bochum and should have done against Effzeh bar a dramatic, albeit undeserved winner from Donyell Malen, the one Dortmund player doing anything, and the picture becomes less rosy for those fans at the Westfalenstadion who endured a less than ideal summer. Manager Edin Terzić has always been a man with question marks around him, his caretaker stint with a much better BVB on paper was promising, but the decision to rush him back to the dugout in favour of Marco Rose was not one that sat well with everyone. In the year since his return, Dortmund were genuine title contenders against a weak Bayern side, but mentality stopped them time and again, as they choked in several key spots including that last game nightmare against Mainz. This season, nothing has been there to suggest that the fan from nearby Menden is the man who can finally get this time to hoist the meisterschale once more.
That brings us to the key question – should Edin Terzić be let go? Hans-Joachim Watzke was clear a few weeks ago that this wouldn’t happen for a long time, telling Bild, “We’ll be going the same way with Edin Terzić for the next few years. That’s it.” But two weeks is a long time in football and whilst players have been dropping subtle hints that something needs to change, the mood outside of the Dortmund camp is more mixed. On Sport1’s Dopplepass, Bild’s Chief Columnist Alfread Draxler said doubts were starting to arise, whilst former Dortmund man Hannes Wolf said that everyone loves their current manager.
What is clear is that Dortmund should not be as steadfast in their opinion on Terzić as they have been in the past. There are significant reasons to suggest that he is not the right man, no matter how likeable he is as a person (which he still is). His likeability has clearly given him too much power and leeway in the past and this has to change. You don’t win a title without being ruthless, Terzić has shown before that he can turn bad runs of form around, but he needs to do so again fast, as BVB will not be given as golden an opportunity to get back in the title race should they slip further.
Ruhr neighbours Schalke must dream of the problems Dortmund have, their convincing 2-0 loss this weekend to Holstien Kiel sees 04 in 15th, level on points with the relegation places and an Eintracht Braunschweig side who got their only win of the season against who else but Schalke. Even their one win of the season, last week against Kaiserslautern, required the Red Devils to lose two players before their hosts were able to properly run away with it. This is terrible news for head coach Thomas Reis, who is looking more and more likely to be the first managerial casualty in the 2. Bundesliga this season.
Some of the problems the side from Gelsenkirchen are facing are not uncommon for newly relegated sides: motivation for one, Kiel just fought harder this weekend, leading on to problem two, players struggling with the increased physicality of the second tier compared to its big brother. The new squad is having a hard time gelling with each other, but that problem is only exacerbated by Thomas Reis picking a new side in every game. He does seem to have one plan, run everything through Assan Ouédraogo, a seventeen-year-old midfielder who shouldn’t really be in that sort of situation at his age. This is something that the players have reportedly picked up on as well, with Sport1 reporting that some of the more senior members of the team are already losing faith and viewing Reis as someone who doesn’t tactically have the answers.
This makes Saturday’s game against Wehen a must win if Reis is to avoid becoming the first sacking of the season, Sports Director Andre Hechelmann has already said words to that effect. In an interview with WAZ, he said the team had been asked to “put a better performance on the pitch against Wiesbaden and achieve a good result. We need points before the international break.” Schalke have not been unlucky this season, they deserve to be no higher than 15th, and if nothing changes after the Wehen game, the international break will be the perfect time to change manager.
I titled this article with a question about whether Dortmund or Schalke are in a more worrying position. Short-term and long-term the answer is Schalke, though you probably already knew that. Dortmund are notorious slow starters, and whilst there is more reason to panic now than there has been in past seasons, missing out on the title this year wouldn’t be the end of the world. If Schalke miss out on promotion back to the Bundesliga however, they might become the new HSV.
Other points
Bayer Leverkusen are the best title challengers to Bayern: Xabi Alonso’s men followed up last week’s promising 3-2 win over Leipzig with a dominant 3-0 win over local rivals Borussia Mönchengladbach. The newcomers in particular having great games: Victor Boniface getting two, Granit Xhaka dominating in midfield, and Jonas Hofmann playing well in what must have been an emotionally tough game. So far, they look like the side who are most primed to challenge Bayern for the title. They have hungry players, a talented manager, and their football is great to watch, they may be our biggest hope.
Addition by subtraction for Hertha: As if losing their opening three games of the season wasn’t bad enough, Hertha had a bad week on paper as they lost Dodi Lukébakio to Sevilla, Marco Richter to Mainz, and Suat Serdar to Hellas Verona. The result? A 5-0 win over Greuther Fürth at the weekend securing the short-term position of Pál Dárdai. It may have been the case all along that these players were causing disharmony in the dressing room and getting rid of them is even better than adding new players. I guess we’ll have our answer to whether this was a blip or not when Hertha take on 4th placed Magdeburg on Saturday.
St. Pauli need a striker: Good news, St. Pauli have not conceded a goal in 328 minutes. Bad news, St. Pauli haven’t scored a goal in 318 minutes. The football that Kiezkicker have been producing recently hasn’t been the best and has been emblematic of a problem that has persisted since the club lost Guido Burgstaller at the end of the 2021/22 season. They don’t have that out-and-out experienced striker who can score 20+ goals and guide the side up the league. They did sign Andreas Albers this summer from Jahn Regensburg, but he only scored 6 times last season and only hit double digits once during his time with Die Jahnelf (2020/21). Hopefully they can sort something out in the final week of the window because this could be the difference between a side who finish mid-table and a side who challenge for promotion.
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