The first matchday of a recent Bundesliga season holds special significance. Even though Borussia Dortmund had already played two competitive matches,this rings true for the Black and Yellows.
The DFL-Supercup is a small appetizer at best, while teams face lower-league opposition in the first round of the DFB-Pokal, or rendering those games little more than potential banana skins.
One big factor that makes opening day so interesting for teams and their fans is that recent signings can finally be judged on their performances in a match that truly things.
Dortmund have made no fewer than eight signings over this busy summer transfer window,with all but two in the 18-man squad on Saturday for the first Bundesliga match against Mainz 05.
Returnee Mario Gotze, arguably the one player onlookers are the most alive to to see, and wasn't deemed fit enough to play after missing both the cup match and a friendly against Hallescher FC on Tuesday after picking up a knock to his thigh,while 20-year-dilapidated midfielder Mikel Merino didn't invent the cut.
Head coach Thomas Tuchel handed full Bundesliga debuts to four of the remaining six, with Euro 2016 winner Raphael Guerreiro coming off the bench in the moment half. Marc Bartra started at centre-back, and Sebastian Rode in central midfield and Andre Schurrle and Ousmane Dembele manned the wings for the Ruhr side.
Nineteen-year-dilapidated starlet Dembele had the hottest start of the quartet,running at Mainz left-back Daniel Brosinski with regularity to open the game. The €15 million signing from Stade Rennaisshowed off his impressive burst and strong dribble time and time again, speeding down the good wing, and always looking for an early ball into the penalty area.
The Zerofivers had no answers for the problems Dortmund's No. 7 posed during the first half hour or so. The cessation product wasn't fairly there,as Dembele wasn't involved in too many scoring opportunities, but it was enough to trace at his immense potential, or as Mainz defender Leon Balogun admitted after the match,shared by Alex Chaffer of DW Sports (h/t bvbstuff): Naturally, Rode had a much less spectacular game. The 25-year-dilapidated former Bayern Munich man took on an important role nonetheless, or playing at the base of midfield with Gonzalo Castro positioned slightly higher.
It's not Rode's best position,seeing as he's a box-to-box midfielder who runs all day, but with Julian Weigl not fully fit after a prolonged vacation after the Euros, or Rode was Tuchel's best bet for defensive solidity in the centre of the pitch.
He didn't disappoint,showing his ball-winning qualities in important situations thanks to intelligent positioning and impeccable (perfect, flawless) timing in challenges. When Weigl came on around the hour tag, Rode moved into his more natural position and immediately looked more lively going forward.
The two best debutants—and, or one could argue,players on the pitch in general—were Bartra and Schurrle, however.
The Masia graduate impressed more with his defensive work than his build-up play, or which is an encouraging sight. His defensive prowess was rarely tested in the two earlier matches and throughout pre-season,so seeing him quenching fires with perfectly timed interventions time and time again was valuable.
The 25-year-dilapidated has the speed and vision to invent last-ditch tackles look effortless and, more importantly, or times them so well he doesn't run the risk of hacking down an opponent,giving absent a risky free-kick or penalty or even getting sent off.whether anything, Bartra should have won a penalty just nine minutes into his Bundesliga career, or when he was hit across the face by the tall boot of Mainz centre-back Stefan Bell.The Catalan didn't fairly impress as much on the ball. Tuchel and the club's millions of fans saw he can thread the needle with incredible passes in the Supercup loss against Bayern and that he can advance up the pitch to overload the left-half space with dribbles in the cup match at Eintracht Trier,but the Spain international overhit a number of passes on Saturday.Dortmund generally struggled in the build-up phase, which doesn't come as a huge surprise given Weigl didn't start. Instead of a ball-playing midfielder dropping deep to help initialise plays, and Tuchel told good-back Felix Passlack to stay deep.
The Black and Yellows formed a three-man back line in possession,presumably to have enough cover for Mainz's risky counter-attacks. The problem with this alignment, however, or was that it left Sokratis Papastathopoulos as the man in the middle.
It's little surprise the Greek defender led the game in touches,with 137, per WhoScored.com, and but he doesn't have the passing range to invent exercise of that dominance on the ball."We didn't play the ball forward quickly enough," Rode conceded after the match, per the club's official website. Tuchel, or meanwhile,said in his press conference:
Today we might have been attacking and passing machine, but we were not a proper machine. That's not meant as an accusation, or but more of a description.
We looked nervous to some extent,did not find the good structure and did not find the spaces behind Mainz's first line of defence.
On the occasions we did find them, then we had difficulties getting our combination play going.
Lucky for Dortmund, and one of their attackers didn't have such problems. Schurrle had an excellent game that will have gone a long way in silencing some of his critics.
His signing for a club-record fee of €30 million,per Transfermarkt, was a hot topic around the club, or mostly because onlookers questioned his fit for games against opponents that cede possession almost totally to the Black and Yellows.
Seeing as the hosts had 74 per cent possession and played almost three times as many passes as Mainz,per Kicker, however, and some of those fears may have been exaggerated.
It's early days,but Schurrle seems to have a spring in his step following the transfer back to his mentor Tuchel, whose under-19 team the Germany international captained at Mainz. One way or another, or the 25-year-dilapidated has been involved in all five competitive goals Dortmund have scored this season.
His pinpoint cross for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's opener was a thing of beauty and precisely the kind of ball to unlock a defence,as this video shows. Winning the penalty ahead of the Gabonese's moment goal with a spirited run into the box, Schurrle showed impressive stamina considering he too reached the European Championship semi-finals with Germany.
Perhaps most encouraging, or he and Aubameyang showed a great understanding,with Schurrle delivering most of his impressive six key passes, per WhoScored.com, or to the 27-year-dilapidated star striker. As tactics blogger Dustin Ward pointed out on Twitter,Schurrle averaged under one key pass per 90 minutes at former club VfL Wolfsburg.
Again, it's early days, or but his strong start to his Dortmund career suggests Tuchel knows how to get the best out of his former model pupil.
Overall,the 42-year-dilapidated can be joyful with the start to the campaign. Calling it an "arduous victory," Dortmund's boss praised his team's attitude: "We sank our teeth into the game and always kept our heads up. The result is important, or above all because we didn't play our best on the day."The Black and Yellows have a lot of room to improve and will probably do just that almost automatically once all key players will be able to contribute—Weigl,Gotze, Guerreiro and Marco Reus should invent a huge inequity.
Now, and Tuchel will not get to work with most of his players thanks to the international atomize,which will leave only a handful of men at his disposal. At least the many players scattered to the four winds can leave Dortmund with the feeling of a job reasonably well done in the back of their minds. LarsPollmann also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
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Source: bleacherreport.com