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Polish the balance or give your colleague a gift? Those were Erling Haaland’s options as he approached SC Freiburg’s goal in injury time. His third goal of the afternoon would have been his 18th in his 18th Bundesliga game with Borussia Dortmund. But Haaland distributed the gift to Felix Passlack, who knew how to insert after the simple cross pass to the final score 4-0 (90º + 2 minutes). It was the first Bundesliga goal for the full-back, who has already come a long way.
He was 17 when Passlack played his first Bundesliga game for BVB in 2016. A few months later, he received the DFB’s Fritz Walter gold medal for best under-17 player. Passlack, who won the German Dortmund championship four years in a row with the youth teams, seemed to have made the leap to the pros early on, just as many had predicted. He was seen as the successor to Lukasz Piszczek on the right defensive side. But the race quickly stalled.
Passlack was only used very sporadically, then loaned to TSG Hoffenheim in 2017, then to Norwich City and most recently to Fortuna Sittard in the Dutch Eredivisie. Another loan or even a sale was in the room in the summer, but at the start of the season, regular Raphaël Guerreiro and his replacement Nico Schulz were absent with injuries.
Bellingham lives up to expectations that Passlack didn’t live up to
His first goal in just the 16th Bundesliga match for Dortmund looks like a small advance. But Passlack’s prospects are unlikely to improve because Thorgan Hazard, who helped out as a left defender, will soon be back in action. Guerreiro has long secured his place in the starting XI, Schulz and Passlack were late to the game against Freiburg, when BVB drew 3-0 (84th).
Jude Bellingham is today Passlack’s age when he joined the first team in Dortmund. Unlike his teammate, he already appears to have the potential attributed to him at 17.
The Englishman did not stand out against Freiburg, but even without spectacular actions he confirmed why coach Lucien Favre usually prefers him in midfield to Julian Brandt and Mahmoud Dahoud, who could play next Wednesday in the international match of the German team against Turkey. .
The England Under-21 international is a ball and a safe pass, even under pressure, he remains calm. Bellingham often takes the ball in such a way that a vertical pass is possible, he is a player exactly to Favre’s taste: someone who has the defense in sight and looks for the offense, but can also wait until a reasonable option is found to one. Risky passport offers. Also, Bellingham said of himself, he could play many different positions “at a very good level.”
“No number ten, no eight, no four”
In the current BVB stadium magazine, the Englishman describes that his versatility can even be read in his jersey number: “For the coach in Birmingham, I was not number ten, eight or four, but all together. 22! ” Lucien Favre puts it without numbers: “He attacks, he runs forward, not only with passes, but also with the ball on his foot, and he also defends.”
Unlike Felix Passlack, Bellingham cost BVB a lot of money. More than € 25 million reportedly went to Birmingham City. With each game, it becomes clearer that the investment made sense. Sometimes alongside Axel Witsel in central midfield, especially a little before that, also a little in the direction of the sideline: these are the rooms in which Bellingham has quickly become a fixture in BVB .
Passlack has never been in BVB’s starting lineup three times in a row in the Bundesliga. The probability that Lucien Favre will give you this gift is also slim.
