Defensive bulwark Neven Subotic resumes team training
He seemed even more invulnerable than Manni „the offender“ Bender, the indestructible robot with a black’n’yellow heart, but much to everybody’s surprise Neven Subotic was missing in the line-up for the season opener against HSV. Obviously even a man of steel tears a muscle fibre at least once in his career.
Against Hamburg the BVB supporters did not miss him all that much, because the team created an offensive thunderstorm which blew the Northeners right out of the Westfalen temple. But in the match at the artificial village it was obvious that Tele Santana is no equal substitute for Neven. The Brazilian seems equally strong in direct duels but once he has conquered the ball or received a pass by a team mate he has problems to do something productive with it and when he tries to go for a technical move he often gets himself and the whole Borussia defence into trouble. Subotic on the other hand often opts for the long ball up front and even though not all of his passes reach a team-mate, he always gets the ball out of the danger zone and often even creates opportunities for successful attacks.
In an interview with local paper Ruhrnachrichten, Neven Subotic talked about his return to team training and his prospect for Saturday’s match against the “Glubb” from Nuremberg.
Neven Subotic on…
his return to team training:
I will start to train with the team today. I could not do anything for a week and over the last week we started to increase the exposure. But I could not do more than jogging for 20 to 30 Minutes.
missing the matches against HSV and Hopp:
That was not so nice because the season has not really started for me yet. Against HSV it was easier because it went well for the team and we won that match. Against Hoffenheim it was painful, because I would have liked to help the team.
his prospects for the Nuremberg match:
I can’t say if I will start on Saturday. We will not rush things and risk a setback. It will depend on how I will react to the training and whether I can adjust to the tempo.
The BVB supporters strongly hope for Neven Subotic to return to our starting 11 on Saturday. His reliable force in our central defence could be taken for granted for a long time and only when he was out injured, it became obvious, how valuable the Serbian international really is for our team of championship defending young-guns. But of course nobody wants him to risk a setback, because there are lots of important matches coming up after the week-end in which we might need our party animal even more.
Web 17.08.2011
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