Seriously though. I think Moukoko having a quiet debut is actually the best thing that could have happened to the lad. Imagine if he had scored today, you wouldn't hear the end for the rest of the season. The media spotlight is absolutely irresponsible for a player that age and if the public thinks that he isn't all that for a while it will only help him.
German Football 20/21
- Thread starter do.ob
- Start date
I completely agree and also want to add, that i find it wrong from Dortmund‘s social media managers to hype Moukoko the way they have done it. DAZN even has some kind of special on him which was obv sanctioned by the club.
Yeah. Zorc even said as much, but then the club's social media team goes all out with him.. I don't really get it either. Though I think getting the debut out of the way was reasonable.
He'll benefit from having Haaland at this time and therefore he can be eased into the team, rather than having to come on when a goal is needed. There isn't pressure on him to perform immediately.
You can only imagine the opposite if Haaland wasn't there or Dortmund. He'd be expected to come on and save Dortmund.
Nah. If you have to rely on a 16 year old to save you the club has failed. Hard.
Favre left Hazard and Sancho untouched on the bench and would have used them if he had not been so effective. If Haaland had a question mark behind him they probably would've signed another striker or kept Alcacer. Anything Moukoko does this season is more or less a bonus.
So, todays results mean that Leverkusen is now in 3rd place in the league, above Leipzig and Gladbach and the only team apart from Wolfsburg which is still undefeated after 8 games. 5 wins in a row, regardless of all the injuries. Right now, we´re missing our most important player in Aranguiz and potentially 3 out of our first choice back 4. Schick, our only profile signing this summer was also injured till his comeback today. Pretty impressive job Peter Bosz is doing at the moment, considering so many pundits thought we would be trash this season because we lost Havertz and Volland.
It was not just sanctioned by them, it was controlled by them in the same way the Kicker headstory was.
Here is the deal: Dortmund would have never been able to contain or block the talk about him. Moukoko was simply too much of a topic before for that (the "controversy" about his true age, verbal racial attacks against him at youth games, his record breaking stats, the iniative spearheaded by Dortmund to lower the entry age for Bundesliga football, etc.).
What they did instead was to make damn sure that any reporting would be on their terms. How did they accomplish that? By giving the journalists all the material they wanted and basically doing their job for them. They gathered tons of quotable statements from former coaches, Favre and pretty much every head official and created a published profile of the boy, which was entirely conducted by inhouse personell.
The result was tons of articles about the boy but absolutely no talk with him. Media access to both himself and his family was strictly shut down by the club. That lack of access was accepted by the German sports media because they had all the material they needed anyway, neatly fed to them by the club.
In the end they followed a simple rule of PR: If you cannot stop a narrative from developing, make sure you control the direction of it.
And how do you defend Dortmund‘s social media team hyping him?
How come Roca has barely been a factor yet? Given his age and experience I wouldn't expect him to be someone who has to be eased in like a teenager. Yet Musiala (or even Moukoko) now has more league minutes than him, even though both Kimmich and Tolisso are injured.
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No idea. He's a complete non-factor currently, I actually forgot about him.
Leverkusen has wins against Mainz, Augsburg, Freiburg, Gladbach and Bielefeld. The victory against Gladbach is obviously a good one, but the rest are not enough to declare them „impressive“ yet.
Thanks to injuries to Arias and Schick they are basically using last season's squad without their two most consistent attackers. I don't see how being up there with Bayern, Dortmund and Leipzig is anything but impressive. Augsburg took points from both Gladbach and Dortmund and Leverkusen also had to play Leipzig. It's not like the other teams up there have played every match against top teams either.
I really wonder who at DFB thinks that press releases like that are a good idea and how that person became so disconnected from the public they are supposed to be communicating with. Three weeks to process.. He lost a glorified friendly.. not a family member..
So Leipzig Mintzlaff gave Kicker an interview titled "we all have to confront the [growing] disillusionment [of fans] from our sport".
But wait, there's more! "professional football has to draw it conclusions [from the current crisis. Clubs have to realize that can be situations that weren't part of any business plan. Everyone has to make sure that they aren't walking a tightrope and try to build up a cushion, so they can get through very difficult times without having to think about [state loans] or other support."
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It's incredible how much worse our defense got this season. The Alaba - Boateng partnership is a trainwreck right now, they can't hold the fort against any team.
The annual Dortmund coupon buster is somehow losing 2-0 at home to Koln so far.
Dortmund conceding almost the same goal twice after corners.
Lazio aside the defense has been quite solid this season, but 5 out of (now) 9 goals conceded from dead balls is a joke. It's really hard for me to understand how this can be such a persistent issue. Between Meunier, Akanji, Hummels, Can, Witsel and Haaland the team today even had plenty of players with an aerial presence.
Augsburg and Cologne are 6 points dropped against beatable opposition, 3 out of 4 goals conceded in both games were from corners/free kicks.
Moukoko on in the 66th, already had a decent chance at his debut goal within a few minutes.
Youngest pre-assist giver of all time ever in the history of Bundesliga!!!!
Brandt, Reus, Sancho, Haaland in XI and can't create enough decent chance to score against relegation zone team. Dortmund is so bad today.
Moukoko already looking more dangerous than Haaland and Sancho. Blistering pace and should have earned a pen. I know I’m willing him on to single-handedly overturn the game.
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He's a bit too old to make a comeback I think. Maybe in Serie A, they get the most out of experienced players.
What’s up with Bayern? Looks halfarsed at best.
They go to Atletico on Tuesday, so might not be putting their all in. Still winning 3-1 in the process.
Breaking news: RashyForPM has been shown up to be a careless twat
Time to edit. Best thing is, Mourinho was a really shit footballer, as he freely admits.
Haaland has genuinely missed a 1 XG chance in the last second. Wtf...
Haaland misses from 12 inches in 95th minute. Dortmund lose.
What a miss. Probably cursed since I put money on over 3.5 goals
They have no competition.. they dont have to try.. The second best team is Dortmund who arent all that.
Considering how one sided the Bundesliga is, Bayern have actually done incredibly well to be as good as they are.. One of the best sides in Europe consistently without having the domestic pressure pushing them forward.. very impressive.
Juve did for a while but fell away..
It is hard to overstate how brainless Douglas Costa is on a football pitch.
Fatigue is catching up with them hard. No preseason and little injuries and knocks here and there. They desperately need a break. They have been dragging themselves along for the last couple of weeks.
Come the summer they'll be people here bringing his name up again as a player we should sign. Baffling.
We have no right winger/wide right player.. people get desperate. I get it.
Seriously.. the last natural right winger we had was Nani.. It has been that long.. I have no fecking clue how.
Yeah, this season is brutal for a lot of teams. Makes sense. But i wonder why Flick isn’t resting some key players more often in the league? Even a rotated Bayern side should be able to beat Stuttgart?
Watching Haaland was like watching Lukaku 
Yeah, I agree with you there. I expect some resting against Madrid since Bayern is through anyways. It doesn’t help that with Davies and Kimmich they are missing two players that can both cover 2 or 3 positions.
Well, Stuttgart can play football, too. They've actually played pretty well this season. A fully rotated Bayern squad (aka Choupo-Moting, Sarr, Costa, Roca etc. starting) would find it very hard to beat them.
He's really such a legend.
Dortmund and defending corners, a worse love story than Twilight.
Neuhaus looks really impressive this season! His passing is incisive and looks great running forward, hopefully he can keep up the performances and be an option for Germany at the Euros.
Neuhaus looks really impressive this season! His passing is incisive and looks great running forward, hopefully he can keep up the performances and be an option for Germany at the Euros.
Neuhaus has had some absolutely incredible moments in the limited time I saw him this season. He might well become a very special player. That pass against Inter away though...
It is astonishing how bad Schalke truly are.
| Rk | Squad | MP | W | D | L | GF | GA | GDiff | Pts | xG | xGA | xGDiff | xGDiff/90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Dortmund | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 21 | 9 | +12 | 18 | 21.4 | 7.6 | +13.8 | +1.53 |
| 6 | Union Berlin | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 21 | 11 | +10 | 16 | 17.2 | 7.5 | +9.7 | +1.07 |
| 2 | RB Leipzig | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 18 | 6 | +12 | 20 | 16.8 | 7.6 | +9.2 | +1.02 |
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 13 | +18 | 22 | 20.8 | 13.6 | +7.2 | +0.80 |
| 7 | MGladbach | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 17 | 14 | +3 | 15 | 16.7 | 10.3 | +6.4 | +0.71 |
| 3 | Leverkusen | 9 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 16 | 9 | +7 | 19 | 11.4 | 7.4 | +4.1 | +0.45 |
| 10 | Stuttgart | 9 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 17 | 15 | +2 | 11 | 16.0 | 13.6 | +2.4 | +0.27 |
| 5 | Wolfsburg | 9 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 14 | 8 | +6 | 17 | 12.5 | 10.2 | +2.3 | +0.25 |
| 9 | Eint Frankfurt | 9 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 14 | 16 | -2 | 12 | 16.0 | 13.9 | +2.1 | +0.24 |
| 11 | Werder Bremen | 9 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 13 | 15 | -2 | 11 | 10.6 | 11.8 | -1.2 | -0.13 |
| 12 | Hoffenheim | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 15 | 16 | -1 | 9 | 15.7 | 18.6 | -2.9 | -0.32 |
| 13 | Hertha BSC | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 15 | 18 | -3 | 8 | 12.0 | 15.1 | -3.1 | -0.34 |
| 16 | Mainz 05 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 11 | 22 | -11 | 5 | 12.8 | 17.7 | -4.9 | -0.55 |
| 15 | Köln | 9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 15 | -5 | 6 | 10.7 | 15.7 | -5.0 | -0.56 |
| 14 | Freiburg | 9 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 10 | 20 | -10 | 7 | 10.5 | 16.3 | -5.8 | -0.65 |
| 8 | Augsburg | 9 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 11 | 12 | -1 | 12 | 7.8 | 14.6 | -6.8 | -0.75 |
| 17 | Arminia | 9 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 19 | -13 | 4 | 5.8 | 16.1 | -10.3 | -1.15 |
| 18 | Schalke 04 | 9 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 28 | -22 | 3 | 5.9 | 23.1 | -17.2 | -1.91 |