Football Bundesliga
Sahin’s bitter week: “It’s our turn! We have to deliver!”
Nuri Sahin (r) can no longer look: BVB is losing away again. photo
© Tom Weller/dpa
What now, Nuri Sahin? The 2:5 at the big Real Madrid was followed by a 1:2 against the much smaller FC Augsburg for the young coach. BVB flops away from home – and the crisis can quickly escalate.
Sometimes Nuri Sahin didn’t even want to look anymore. Dortmund’s coach put his hands over his face on the bench during his team’s next away flop and fled into the dressing room after the final whistle. But after that, the 36-year-old didn’t duck away, but at the end of a very bitter week and in his first major crisis as BVB head coach, he stood in front of every microphone and all critical questions.
First the five-goal blackout in the Champions League in the 2:5 against the great Real Madrid. Then the frightening and no longer nice to talk about 1:2 (1:1) at the much, much smaller FC Augsburg in the Bundesliga: That was too much for the loyal fans. The BVB players stood in front of the fan block in disbelief and heard loud whistles.
“It’s part of our fate that we get whistled at sometimes,” said Sahin. Rather, he held his players and himself massively responsible. “It’s our turn! We’re the ones who have to deliver – and only we,” said the 36-year-old in the press room of the FCA Stadium.
Ricken and Kehl support Sahin
Early in the season, BVB found itself in a situation in which the club bosses could demonstrate steadfastness in the Sahin long-term project. “We are marching on together and are completely behind it,” assured sports director Sebastian Kehl.
The day after Augsburg there was also support for Sahin from Lars Ricken. As managing director, Ricken told “Funke Sport” that he himself had “overall sporting responsibility”. He sees “the coach working with his team in contrast to most other people working with the team. This happens conscientiously, constructively and very intensively.”
Sahin had previously warned that we had to “stand up to the situation and go through it together”. He is “Borussia Dortmund’s coach with heart and soul.” But the still inexperienced head coach Sahin also knows “that things have to get better.” And quickly!
In Augsburg everything started like a picture. Donyell Malen scored after four minutes. And then? The black and yellow glory was over. Sahin saw two “insane goals conceded after unforced errors” by Augsburg’s match winner Alexis Claude-Maurice. And once again Emre Can was a face of the current BVB situation.
Can again
In Madrid, the captain, who had just been incapacitated, came into the game with the score at 2-2. In the end it was 2:5. In Augsburg, when the score was 1-1 at halftime, Can was forced to replace the injured Waldemar Anton. As soon as he was on the pitch, he was involved in Augsburg’s 2-1 victory with an unfortunate defensive action because the ball landed on the foot of goalscorer Claude-Maurice.
After that, at the latest, there was no longer a unit on the pitch. Sahin’s prominent team falls apart far too easily away from home. Brandt called the second goal conceded “a blow to the neck”. The game got wild, “that’s not our flagship discipline.”
One point from four away games
It was “easier to pull a rope with a lot of people than alone,” complained Brandt. The helpless leader spoke of a “wild” and “confusing” feeling on the pitch and advised a reset: “We have to start at the very beginning with the basics.”
Things are going well at home: four games, four wins. And abroad? Four games, one point. “We are lagging behind in the league,” said Kehl. Not the top of the table and the championship title, but even the Champions League places. In the stadium catacombs, Kehl clearly made an effort to focus responsibility primarily on the players. “In the end, the responsibilities lie on the pitch,” said the ex-professional.
Kehl was annoyed by the “harmless” offensive game and “the many goals conceded”. And he announced that “we will once again approach things critically.” For the umpteenth time. The time for this is of course very short. The DFB Cup continues on Tuesday at VfL Wolfsburg – away! And on Sunday after that, the strong RB Leipzig comes to the Dortmund stadium.
And now: Wolfsburg in the cup, Leipzig in the league
The situation could worsen dramatically again, for BVB, for the bosses – and for Sahin. Especially since the personnel situation is now getting worse. In Augsburg, Waldemar Anton (abdominal muscles and hip), Marcel Sabitzer (back) and Julian Ryerson had to leave the field injured one after the other. “I don’t think they’re playing,” said Sahin, referring to Wolfsburg: “If it doesn’t go well, something like that will happen.”
