Julian Brandt was one of the few German winners of the World Cup. This also raised great expectations for the Bundesliga. But the attacker disappointed them in the first two games just as much as his club did.
It has almost become a tradition at Bayer Leverkusen. Every year, before the start of the season, there’s the feeling that everything’s going to fit, that’s what this club’s season will be like. After the first matches, there’s a quick realization: Bayer will have bigger problems than initially expected.
The transfer policy was promising, the squad sounds spectacular. The only notable departures, Bernd Leno and Benjamin Henrichs, were replaced by Leverkusen on an equal footing with Lukas Hradecky and Mitchell Weiser. All the other important players from the previous season have remained – from Jonathan Tah to Lars Bender to Julian Brandt. Paulinho was another young attacker to join them.
After two games, however, Bayer has zero points. It is unlikely that this will change after the match with Bayern Munich. Sports Director Rudi Völler even says that the bad start is partly due to expectations – and is a bit of a challenge for his own team: „Some players have also told me a little too much about how good we are and how far ahead we can be,“ he told the „Kicker“ after the defeat against Wolfsburg. If Leverkusen loses in Munich as well, the last place in the standings threatens.
If you look at the surprising problems in Leverkusen, at least at this early stage you actually get to: Julian Brandt. Yes, the season is still extremely young. And yes, Leverkusen are already plagued by injury problems at an early stage: Lars and Sven Bender as well as Julian Baumgartlinger and Lukas Hradecky were out at the start of the season, Charles Aranguíz was just fit again after a knee injury. Not the most spectacular players in the team and yet important supports. And yet Brandt’s role to date is also striking.
Second matchday, Bayer vs. Wolfsburg. Kai Havertz plays Brandt after just 20 seconds. He goes into the penalty area, stands free in front of goalkeeper Koen Casteels – but then Jérôme Roussillon is still grappling with him. Strong action by the defender, but a Brandt in top form would probably have been the decisive fraction of a second faster. The scene is symptomatic of Brandt’s unfortunate appearances in the first two games.
In 180 minutes of play he only shot once on goal and fired two shots. By way of comparison, Leon Bailey on the other wing has so far scored seven goals and six goals. The Jamaican has also scored the only goal from Leverkusen. Brandt, on the other hand, have not yet lived up to the high expectations. Expectations that ironically also triggered the catastrophic World Cup performance of the DFB team in Russia.
The 22-year-old emerged from the summer as one of the few winners among many losers. After the first qualifying round in the history of the German World Cup, the DFB team was in for a lot. Convenience, arrogance, a lack of attitude – these were reproaches that were supposed to explain the historical failure. Not so with Brandt.
Brandt was praised for having enlivened the German game during his 19 minutes plus injury time. Against Mexico and Sweden he proved his outstanding shooting technique, but had the misfortune to only hit the post. He also scored twice against South Korea, despite a late substitution. Brandt was generally excluded from the comprehensive sporting criticism of the DFB team afterwards.
It was therefore clear that the attacker would also be one of the great hopes for the new season in Leverkusen. In addition, he has already played 134 Bundesliga games. His share in the first two games also shows that he is already an important part of the team at his young age: against Gladbach (63 ball actions) as well as Wolfsburg (62) Brandt was the one of the four offensive players who had the most ball.
However, his actions and decisions in the first two games were unfortunate, sometimes too undecided, just like at the end of the first minute against Wolfsburg. Also one of his biggest strengths, the dribbling, he has not yet played out. Against Gladbach Brandt failed with all his four tempo runs, against Wolfsburg he won one and lost two dribblings. He can hardly set dangerous accents in this way. K8 Sports is free bet online casino site which is very accessible to all players that doesn’t want to deposit money to be able to play.
Against Bavaria, the speed on the wings with Brandt and also Bailey might be decisive. Due to the far moving Munich defence, both could get more space than against other opponents.
Brandt now returns from the national team to Leverkusen before the match. Against Peru he was among the best again, scored his second international goal – with only one shot on goal. He will probably need this effectiveness in Munich in particular, where he is unlikely to see an increase in his chances.
But perhaps these low expectations of the team will also do them good.
24 minutes were enough for Paco Alcácer to arrive in Dortmund. With his goal against Frankfurt, he is on a par with Márcio Amoroso and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. But his coach warns.
The celebrations weren’t really over yet, the supporters were still bathing in the luck of the second win of the season and the short-term lead in the standings, when the hero of the evening caused his coach some serious worries again.
Paco Alcácer had only played a good 20 minutes, he had introduced the important 2:1 with an artistic steep pass and had scored the crowning 3:1 against Eintracht Frankfurt himself. But then he „felt something in his thigh“, as Lucien Favre later reported, an appearance at the Champions League in Bruges next Tuesday is at risk.
But the few minutes of playing time were enough to inspire the imagination. Alcácer played eight passes, they all arrived, and the Dortmund club proudly announced via its own media channels that the 25-year-old is already part of an exclusive circle of memorable BVB attackers. Just like Márcio Amoroso, the star striker of the 2002 championship year, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, his first shot on goal in the Bundesliga landed right in the net.
„You can have fun with him, you can gamble with him, I think he will be a lot of fun for us,“ said Marius Wolf about the new addition to FC Barcelona and sports director Michael Zorc added: „You can see that he understands football and can combine it with the team.
Only Favre didn’t want to get into the hymns of praise. Of course, he also liked the performance of the striker many experts had expected in the starting eleven. However, the coach seemed to feel confirmed in his eternal sermon by the patience after the Spaniard’s thigh did not even survive these 20 minutes unscathed: „He hasn’t played regularly for two years, it still takes time to get fit.“
The fact that Alcácer is urgently needed was also evident on this evening. Instead of speed and force, as in the better times of the recent past, this performance before Alcácer’s substitution was marked by a portion of pragmatism that was unusual for Dortmund.
For a long time, the construction game seemed tough and laborious. It’s fundamentally positive to „stand defensively good and controlled“, Zorc said to critics whose eyes had missed beauty and ferocity. At the same time, however, the sports director assured that there would very soon be games again in which the BVB would „gain more chances“.
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Lucien Favre, however, has never been a coach whose teams are on the pitch week after week for a thrilling attacking spectacle. When in doubt, the Swiss is banking on stability, and that can be seen in the many small decisions made by the pros on the pitch.
In fact, the Frankfurters had practically no chance of scoring beyond the goal. However, Zorc found another aspect even more remarkable: As in Fürth and against Leipzig, the BVB had admitted very annoying equalizing goals after their own leadership.
Such setbacks had often unsettled the team in the past two seasons, stirred up fears and sowed doubts. Now the team has „come back again“ despite the goal scored, said Zorc. That was „a sign of mentality“. And from a brilliantly occupied substitutes‘ bench.
Both teams had run a lot with about 120 kilometres each, the freshness with which Jadon Sancho, Axel Witsel and Alcácer enriched the game in the final phase was one of the key factors. During the week Favre had been complaining a bit about the big squad („We are too many.“), because prominent professionals like Julian Weigl or Shinji Kagawa didn’t even belong to the squad. Mario Götze sat on the bench for the third time for 90 minutes in the third Bundesliga game. If you are fond of online casino games, then Vernons Sports if one of the trusted sports betting sites.
Now it turned out that a lot of quality in the back rows can be worth a lot. Sancho prepared the second and third goals, Witsel was immediately very present and Alcácer exceeded all expectations anyway.
A home win for the preliminary table lead – from BVB’s point of view one could not expect much more from the match against Frankfurt. But the game also showed Borussia’s weaknesses.
In the end everything was fine. A 3:1 victory against cup winner Eintracht Frankfurt sounds like a successful evening for Borussia Dortmund. But the way there was clearly more laborious, than the result suggests. This was partly due to the good performance of the guests, but also to the way the new BVB coach Lucien Favre lets his team play.
Favre had already surprised with the line-up. The top-class summer entrants Axel Witsel and Paco Alcácer found themselves on the bench for the time being. Instead, Favre relied on defensive stability through a supposedly compact midfield and once again on Maximilian Philipp as the central striker. Both only worked to a limited extent.
In the course of the game, however, Favre revealed one of his great strengths and the advantage of the excellently staffed Dortmund squad: The coach makes the right decisions in difficult moments and has enough top-class personnel available to give games in the final phase a decisive turn. The substitutions of Jadon Sancho, Witsel and Alcácer made the difference. Sancho prepared the two late goals for 2-1 and 3-1, Alcácer opened the second BVB goal and scored the third himself.
The new Dortmund striker needed 21 minutes for his first goal for Borussia. This brings back memories of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Michy Batshuayi, who had also scored in their first Bundesliga matches – Aubameyang after 24 minutes, Batshuayi after 35. The decisive difference: Alcácer did not give up the classic centre forward in his first BVB minutes, but stayed mostly in his own half, had only one ball contact in the opponent’s sixteenth and scored his goal after a corner from the right corner of the penalty area.
Whether Alcácer can become the saviour in the centre of the attack cannot be judged from his first short appearance. The only thing that seems clear is that Maximilian Philipp is not a classic centre forward. In 67 minutes, the former Freiburg player only managed one shot, but he passed the goal. From his 14 passes, he brought nine to the man and – like Alcácer – only one ball contact in the opponent’s penalty area.
Favre’s problem: With Philipp, Sancho, Marco Reus, Marius Wolf, Jacob Bruun Larsen, Christian Pulisic and Mario Götze he has an oversupply of high-class offensive players for the outer position or as a possible hanging top. A real ninth as a first leg in the front line, like Aubameyang and Batshuayi were, is missing so far. Alcácer is the only hope.
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„We have to learn to control the ball better under pressure,“ Favre said after the game. He must have meant his defensive midfield in particular. Mahmoud Dahoud and Thomas Delaney had problems building up the game, especially in the first half. The two players in sixth place only brought 71.8 percent (Dahoud) and 75.4 percent (Delaney) of their passes to the other player, while in the opponent’s half the quota was significantly below 60 percent for both. Weak values for players who were supposed to ensure order and structure in the control center.
The main reason for this was the good and concentrated pressing of Eintracht. Over long distances, the Frankfurters succeeded in narrowing the spaces and constantly attacking through disciplined and committed play. The result: Only four Dortmund finishes in the first half, of which the lucky goal to 1-0 was the only really dangerous one. The fact that the Dortmund attackers hung in the air for a long time was mainly due to the fact that there were too few impulses from the midfield. BVB already had the same problem in their draw against Hanover.
Only in the final phase did the guests have to pay tribute to their high willingness to run and became tired. The Dortmund Joker Witsel, Sancho and Alcácer, who set the decisive accents, profited from this. In other words: If the BVB has room, it also has the playful quality to create chances and score goals. But Borussia still has a hard time against compact and aggressive opponents. In the UK, Coral is one of the biggest online casino gaming site.