There was also a bit of melancholy when Edin Terzic formulated a sentence on Monday afternoon that any screenwriter would have been proud of. When asked about striker Erling Haaland, Borussia Dortmund’s coach replied, slightly maudlin: “He now scores his goals in a different shirt.”
As much as this sounded like a football variant of lovesickness, Terzic’s poetry only reminded of the bare fact that the 22-year-old Norwegian no longer wears black and yellow, but sky blue when he is with Manchester City this Tuesday evening at BVB guested. It will be the first game for Haaland in the Dortmund stadium in which he has the legendary south stand as an opponent.
Five months and eleven days after his last appearance at Signal-Iduna-Park, Haaland is returning to the stadium where he made his breakthrough to become one of the world’s top scorers. He scored 86 goals in 89 competitive games for BVB between January 2020 and May 2022. “It was a fantastic time,” said Haaland recently – and then added: “I miss Dortmund.”
Describe Haaland’s strengths? His English is not enough for that, City coach Guardiola recently replied
Whether that was pure politeness or whether he really misses the city and the club in the Ruhr area, in Manchester, as he did in Dortmund, he didn’t need any warm-up time to show his strengths. He has already scored 22 goals in 14 competitive games in the Premier League and Champions League. In the 3-1 win against Brighton, he scored twice. When City’s coach Pep Guardiola was recently asked to give a detailed and comprehensive eulogy to Haaland, he ironically replied that his English was too bad for that. He has probably long since run out of superlatives in his native language, Spanish.
In Dortmund, they have known everything about Haaland for much longer than Guardiola. They had him with them for two and a half years. You know his technique, his running paths, his mentality and, if there are any at all, his weaknesses. You noticed that a bit six weeks ago at the Dortmund Champions League group game in Manchester, when the central defenders Mats Hummels and Niklas Süle gave the Norwegian almost nothing – except for the moment when Haaland artistically six minutes before the end 2-1 winner for City.
Hummels and Süle, side by side, did a good job on September 14 in Manchester despite conceding two goals that night – two of just three for the duo this season. The central defender duo at BVB Süle/Schlotterbeck was the most common. These two, who are also held in high esteem by national coach Hansi Flick, have played in central defense for 11 of Dortmund’s 18 goals so far this season. Whether they do the same against ManCity depends not least on whether Schlotterbeck’s hardened calf allows it to be used at all.
Süle and Schlotterbeck were only allowed to play together in the 2-0 cup win in Hanover, otherwise Terzic opted for other combinations: Hummels and Schlotterbeck with right-back Süle recently in the 5-0 win against Stuttgart; in the 2-0 defeat at Union Berlin, a back three with Süle, Hummels and Schlotterbeck – and in the 1-1 draw against Sevilla Süle and Hummels inside. Terzic has not yet found the best of all constellations that could get used to each other over several games.
How they want to play on Tuesday, “we will decide what feels best,” says coach Terzic
But maybe he’s not looking for consistency in the chain of defense at all, but rather for variability. In the first leg in Manchester he had deployed a back four with three defensive midfielders in front. That worked well until the last ten minutes. Whether Terzic brings two or three central defenders, four or five players in the back line and two or three defensive midfielders this Tuesday evening – “we will decide what feels best,” he said on Monday.
All of football Germany is currently watching Terzic’s ideas, Dortmund’s performance against ManCity and BVB’s defense in general. Not only because of the central defenders Süle and Schlotterbeck, but also because some people are wondering whether the almost 34-year-old and well-spoken Hummels might still be a candidate for the World Cup in Qatar. And whether Süle could also help out as a right-back with Flick.
The Sauerland Terzic is experimenting in Westphalia on a national mission, so to speak, and a game against Manchester City as one of the world’s best teams with Haaland as the world’s top scorer should actually be particularly insightful. To this end, it is even a stroke of luck that Haaland is now scoring his goals in the opposing jersey. For all Dortmund romantics, on the other hand, it is of course deeply regrettable.
