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The corner kick is one of the actions of football that has changed the least over the years. There are a few manageable variants, but most of the time it is like this: Someone hits the ball in the penalty area looking for a good head player who then either pushes the ball directly into the goal or spreads it to a teammate. It is one of the simplest and simplest actions in football, seen tens of thousands of times, and the process is always the same.
In view of this, it is surprising how Borussia Dortmund were fooled by him on Friday night at Union Berlin.
The Berliners met twice after corner kicks. That was enough for them to have a 2: 1 hit and a happy Christmas at Köpenick. There were no particularly skillful corners, although they were kicked hard, but otherwise in such a way that a defense can adapt to them. Especially when it is known in advance that Union has players like Marvin Friedrich with a strong header in their ranks. And if you already know that Union was successful against Bayern with this simple recipe the week before.
But after Dortmund he probably didn’t budge in the change of manager confusion during the week. Both times, the defense looked like this year’s rabbits, with seasoned veterans like Mats Hummels or Axel Witsel. As if the 16, 17 year olds had not been used in the attack line, but in cover.
“It was too easy for Union,” new coach Edin Terzic said in their second competitive game. “We didn’t get into these correct positions and we were too agitated,” he said. The spirit of optimism in Dortmund, which Terzic is supposed to embody, has suffered a first setback. Maybe that’s not so bad for the young coach. The analogies to the ubiquitous Jürgen Klopp, which were conjured in public and strapped to the back of each BVB coach like a backpack, can be put away again for now.
It could have been such a beautiful story from Dortmund that night at the Alte Försterei: with Youssoufa Moukoko’s first goal for a 1: 1 interim draw. It was the frantic question in the press box: exactly 16 years and 28 days exactly. Every action by the youngster is measured against and against records, and of course this was also the youngest player’s goal in Bundesliga history. Moukoko had previously set another record with a shot from the post just before the break – the youngest player in the league to hit the post.
The fact that BVB cannot buy anything for him in the end is due less than nothing to the fact that the 16-year-old, who hardly knows after his goal, lives with his irrepressible joy. With Union’s victory, Moukoko’s goal could no longer touch the overall impression of the team, which was quite desolate in the second game after the change of coach from Lucien Favre to Edin Terzic.
Most of the Dortmund professionals are far from their best form, Marco Reus and Jadon Sancho crossed the square on Friday more like holograms of themselves, who knows what these two can do for themselves, they will regret to see them that night. But others like defender Manuel Akanji or Emre He may have lost the thread, Thomas Meunier, again in the starting eleven on Friday, has not yet found him.
Especially the appearance in the first half revealed the image of a deeply insecure team, which allowed the brave Unionern to buy the guts. You had the feeling that you could only send Hummels and Witsel calmly into a duel with the prospect of emerging as a winner.
It’s clear that the team lacks the ruthless efficiency, the will, the bitter cold in front of the injured Erling Haaland’s goal. But Haaland’s unwavering precision has obviously helped fill the team’s deficits in recent weeks and months. The torn muscle fiber in the Norwegian looks like a curtain that has been lifted to reveal BVB’s true condition in late fall 2020.
Certainly, Favre did not leave his successor Edin Terzic a tilled field. But the team also suffers from a managerial imbalance between the very young and the experienced, who appear to lack a solid and crisis-proof midrange.
“The table is not our subject now,” says Terzic. But you can hardly determine. In the worst case, the difference from first place increases to nine points after this 13th round. BVB have lost to Cologne, VfB Stuttgart and Union in three weeks and have drawn against Frankfurt. With such results, the claim to be a superior team is lost for the moment.
