Review on the season so far

Now, that 3 matches have been played it may be too early to draw final conclusions. But with this weekend reserved for World Cup 2006 qualifiers it may be allowed to make a check-up. Adding to the impressions of the Bundesliga there were DFB-Cup and UI-Cup matches.


The balance is somewhat lousy: On the one hand there was the bitter and shameful UI-Cup exit against a team of no-names of Genk, on the other hand we reached the second round of the DFB-Cup. Though BVB played unglamorously when beating VfB Lübeck 1-0. However Borussia avoided an embarrassing early exit which we are used to since 15 years. In Bundesliga the record shows 1 draw, 1 victory and 1 defeat adding up in 5-5 goals – extremely mediocre! And even more bitter when taking in account how we managed to loose points at home against Wolfsburg (1-2) and Hanover(1-1). This way we devaluated 3 “big points” we got back with from Mönchengladbach. The team didn’t completely convince in one of these matches, though some improvements were noticed.
Late, but not really as a surprise Bert van Marwijk choose Warmuz as the old and new goalkeeper. Until the 92nd minute of the last match you could have attested van Marwijk had the right touch, but the “double-fault” of Jan Koller and Guillaume Warmuz cost the team 2 points which were much needed. Already last season’s return leg showed that French goalie Warmuz is surely not a bad one but clearly he is also not the most constant goalkeeper.
The deficiencies of our defence were discussed over and over throughout the last weeks and will surely be a topic the whole season over. Madouni and Bergdølmo delivered really bad performances – and improvement is not in sight. So it was crucial that Christian Wörns is back from injury thus giving the defence some quality. He will be accompanied by Guy Demel, who did surprisingly do well in central defence. Finally his transfer seems to pay off and even the player cottons on to the new position.

Absolutely horrible, for fans as for neutral viewers, are Jensen’s and Evanilson’s performances, left- and right-back defenders. Some bright moments in the Gladbach match were overshadowed by many bad appearances. The list of deficiencies is long: tactical misbehaviour, bad duelling, cut-ins not worth mentioning. While van Marwijk has no alternative to Evanilson, Jensen, who wasn’t able to perform like he did for Denmark at Euro2004, could be replaced by Leonardo Dede. After all Dede showed over many years that he can do the left-back job in offence as in defence. Whereas in midfield he has till now not made a major impact and his performances weren’t any better compared to the other players.
After a lousy last season Tomas Rosicky seems to be on the way back to show what his real potential is. Presumed he doesn’t get injured, he is surely one of the most important players of van Marwijk’s squad and has still potential to improve further. Particularly his scoring record is still mediocre – though noticing that he scored against Hanover.

Surprisingly Sunday Oliseh performed very well, especially at set-pieces he improved big style. His weaknesses regarding speed and scoring out of the game will probably accompany him for the rest of his career. But still bringing him back was, regarding the sports aspect only, a good decision. The pure opposite is Sebastian Kehl, who doesn’t manage to perform like he did in his first 6 months when he was transferred from SC Freiburg. Contrary to Oliseh he would have the qualities to move forward at BVB attacks and penetrate the opponent’s goal. Sadly he doesn’t show this qualities very often. His skills at conquering the ball are undoubted, but his error ratio when it comes up to passes is still way too high.

It may be that a defender is even more needed than Mark van Bommel, but surely he would have raised the quality level of the squad easily. What a pity that this transfer didn’t happen, because apart from Florian Kringe, who could line-up with Kehl, there is no alternative available!
Even this part of the squad didn’t convince. Especially the Wolfsburg match was a pure waste of chances to score which was the main reason we lost all 3 points. After improving in Gladbach, where both striker hit the net, the performance at the Hanover match was again horrible. Apart from the scoring records, the forwards have enough work to do to improve their overall performance
No, it wouldn’t be fair to judge Bert van Marwijk right now. A positive aspect is that there aren’t “moon balls” from deep centre position to Jan Koller anymore. Instead the fans saw some nice combination football. But for introducing major changes and improvements he surely needs more time, which he should have. It is very good to see that he sets a high value on special training for players to work on their weaknesses. Especially David Odonkor benefits by this methods, which unfortunately haven’t been practised during the last couple of years. Still it is a pity that van Marwijk, like former coach Matthias Sammer, isn’t a fan of early substitutions or substitutions at all. Against Hanover some fresh players couldn’t have done any harm to Borussia’s game. Those two players that most of all pile into the first squad are mentioned already, Salvatore Gambino and David Odonkor.

Geschrieben von Sebi