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Maybe Lucien Favre will change his mind again. It will take a few days before Borussia Dortmund will play the last match of the Champions League round at Zenit in St. Petersburg next Tuesday. A win against the last downed player in the standings would bring 2.7 million euros to the account snatched from the crown and would win the group. But neither one attracted the BVB coach for nearly a week. “The first place is not relevant”, said Favre after the 1-1 against Lazio Roma, “only the qualification to the second round counts”.
He liked to point out twice “the end of the world”, which he saw proclaimed in the media after the 3-1 first leg defeat and a very poor performance. At that moment Favre had promised that “we will make it”, now he has kept his promise and commented with satisfaction: “Lazio are not yet qualified”.
One topic was over, another will occupy Dortmund even more in the coming weeks. Erling Haaland is due to a hamstring tear “until early January,” as Favre said. The striker, who has scored 16 goals in 13 official matches of the season, will be absent in at least four Bundesliga matches and in the DFB Cup at Eintracht Braunschweig. BVB’s second-best scorer in the Bundesliga could also be canceled. But it’s much more important for another reason, because Mats Hummels is the head of defense who is consistently in good shape. Hummels has the floor in the square. Praise, divide, build, including play.
Shortly before the end of the match against Lazio, the central defender went to the ground and immediately indicated that he should be replaced. “Hopefully it was just a blow to the foot and it goes quickly again,” said sporting director Michael Zorc. Hummels contacted Instagram after midnight. He just got out of the hospital and it looks like “it’s not that bad”. He thinks he will be back on the pitch very soon. But he could only say more details after further investigation.
With Raphaël Guerreiro, the scorer against Lazio had previously been replaced. “He felt something,” the coach said, pointing to the back of his thigh. Haaland, Hummels, Guerreiro: the three pillars of the team could break away together for Saturday’s match at Eintracht Frankfurt.
In Haaland, the longer break is even a certainty. When asked how Favre intends to recover the loss, he repeated the list he had heard many times before. Julian Brandt could be playing “as wrong striker”, Marco Reus and Thorgan Hazard are also “options in attack”.
Against Lazio, Reus and Hazard often alternated in the center of the attack. Hazard attracted attention with a good preparatory work for the goal of the advantage, Reus with a few passes with which he accelerated the game. However, he himself lost almost all running duels. His dueling behavior, his approach to the opponent – this is qualitatively much worse than that of a Haaland. Brandt also has obvious shortcomings here, Hazard is solid on these points.
BVB can be happy that Youssoufa Moukoko is now 16 and a few days old. Borussia have a classic center forward in the squad who is technically perhaps a little further away than Haaland because the discrepancy between strong and weak feet is not that great. “We’ll see what happens to Youssoufa,” Favre said when asked if Moukoko will be in the starting XI in the coming weeks.
Five trips until Christmas
Five away matches – to Eintracht Frankfurt, Zenit St. Petersburg, Werder Bremen, 1. FC Union Berlin and Eintracht Braunschweig – as well as the match against VfB Stuttgart are scheduled for BVB until Christmas. A week ago it still looked like the Dortmunders could successfully cope with the schedule and distribute the load as evenly as possible thanks to a balanced team. Then came the defeat against 1. FC Köln, where players like Brandt and Alex Witsel proved that their form was not correct. Also, Thomas Meunier, a professional Favre loves to have on the team, was injured. Furthermore, his absence once again showed Guerreiro’s value very clearly.
Then Haaland, Emre Can also fell against Lazio, then Guerreiro again, then Hummels. It would be an appeal to Favre if the defense chief was right with his first diagnosis.
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