Leaders Dortmund in crisis after 4 winless games
Bayern aim to increase pressure on rivals
BERLIN, Feb 14, (AP): Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund is going through their first crisis under coach Lucien Favre.
Dortmund have failed to win any of their four games in February and have developed a propensity for collapsing toward the end of games.They have conceded nine goals in their last three matches.
A 3-0 defeat at Tottenham on Wednesday leaves Dortmund on the verge of exiting the Champions League, and it came just days after they surrendered a threegoal lead in the final minutes to let Hoffenheim draw 3-3 in the Bundesliga.
The week before, Dortmund allowed a pair of extra-time goals in a German Cup round-of-16 game that Werder Bremen won on penalties.
They have not won in the Bundesliga since a 5-1 rout of relegation candidates Hannover on Jan 26. Dortmund still lead the league by five points but have Bayer Leverkusen to thank for beating second-place Bayern Munich, the six-time defending champions, on the day Dortmund were held to a 1-1 draw in Frankfurt.
They need to figure out what has been going wrong. “We’re not defending well enough,” Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Buerki said after the defeat to Tottenham. “It can’t be that we concede so many late goals from set pieces in the last weeks. We have to defend rigorously.”
Buerki suggested they need to get tougher, dig in more and get more physical.
“We always have difficulties when it’s against robust teams because we can’t stand up to it, especially from the front,” Buerki said. “Sometimes you have to hit a long ball and if you don’t have a strong player who can hold the ball, it’s extremely difficult.”
Dortmund were missing defenders Manuel Akanji and Lukasz Piszczek at Wembley Stadium and DanAxel Zagadou was only back after 10 weeks out injured. Marco Reus, Julian Weigl and Paco Alcacer were also out.
But Tottenham, third in the Premier League, were also missing key players in top scorer Harry Kane and midfielder Dele Alli. They had been considered a beatable opponents, one that would allow Dortmund to reach the quarterfinals of Europe’s premier competition.
Now it looks unlikely, even if Sebastian Kehl, head of the club’s licensed players division, still thinks there’s hope in the return leg in Dortmund on March 5.
“I know what’s in this team,” Kehl said. “We can get one or more goals and have to try not to concede any.”
Bayern, which are looking at Dortmund’s travails with glee, are unlikely to suffer too many more setbacks of its own and will aim to increase the pressure with a win in Augsburg on Friday.
Dortmund face last-place Nuremberg, a team they defeated 7-0 earlier in the season, away on Monday. But Nuremberg fired coach Michael Koellner and sporting director Andreas Bornemann on Tuesday and are bidding for a fresh start under club favorite Marek Mintal and former assistant coach Boris Schommers.