Dortmund identity crisis ahead of European rematch with Real Madrid
Borussia
Dortmund travel to Real Madrid Tuesday in a rematch of last season's Champions
League final amid worrying form and criticism of coach Nuri Sahin.
Tipped to be
eliminated at the group stage last year, Dortmund arrived for the showpiece
finale at Wembley in June, riding a wave of momentum.
Dortmund
dominated the first half and well into the second, but were felled by a
trademark Real Madrid counterpunch, conceding twice in the final 20 minutes to
lose 2-0.
Since then,
coach Edin Terzic was shown the door, falling victim to a poor domestic season
with a fifth-placed finish, bringing his assistant Sahin into the hot seat.
Sahin, a
Dortmund junior who had stints at Real Madrid and Liverpool as a player, has
overseen 10 games in all competitions.
Now he faces the
biggest test of his mettle to date with his Dortmund team having looked
inconsistent and still appearing to lack a clear tactical identity.
Home
and away
Dortmund started
the season with a solid 2-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt, but were later
thrashed 5-1 by Stuttgart.
Sahin's side are
seventh in the Bundesliga, but are top of the 36-team Champions League group
after wins at Club Brugge and against Celtic at home.
The only
discernible trend so far for Dortmund has been their strength at home and their
woes on the road.
In front of
their 82,000-strong Westfalenstadion home crowd, Dortmund have won five from
five, scoring 19 goals and conceding six.
On the road
however, their two wins in five matches have come against fourth division
Phoenix Luebeck, and Brugge, who sit fourth in the Belgian league.
Real, by
contrast, have won seven from seven at home in all competitions, scoring 19 and
conceding just four.
Up front, the
German side look set to arrive in Madrid lacking firepower with Karim Adeyemi,
Julien Duranville, Giovanni Reyna and attack-minded defender Yan Couto on the
injury list.
Aside from the
ever-reliable Gregor Kobel in goal, Dortmund's only trump card is the form of
striker Serhou Guirassy.
The Guinean, who
joined from Stuttgart in the summer, has 12 goals in his past eight games for
club and country, only failing to score once.
Sahin endured an
unhappy spell at Real who signed him after he won the 2011 Bundesliga title in
a Jurgen Klopp-powered Dortmund side.
Hovever, the
Turkey international played just 10 games in all competitions.
He was loaned
out to Liverpool and then to Dortmund, with the return made permanent three
years later.
The former
defensive midfielder is confident he knows the source of the side's struggles,
complaining about a lack of focus and cohesion in defence.
An 83rd-minute
Guirassy header took Dortmund to a 2-1 win against promoted St Pauli on Friday,
but an "extremely annoyed" Sahin was not in the mood to celebrate
afterwards.
"It's an
issue. It's not acceptable, we have to do better," a frustrated Sahin said
of Dortmund's poor defending.
"We conceded
a goal like that against Celtic where we didn't defend well, we conceded a goal
like that against Union (Berlin), and now it's happened again."
Real's Kylian
Mbappe seems to have hit his straps after a slow start by his standards,
scoring in five of his past six league games.
Mbappe may not
have been there when the sides clashed at Wembley, but Dortmund have some
experience keeping tabs on the Frenchman.
Dortmund faced
Mbappe with former side Paris Saint-Germain four times last season and
restricted the France captain to one just one goal, which came from the penalty
spot.
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