German Football 23/24 |

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" The special status afforded to me was never intended to circumvent or undermine the 50+1 rule, of which I have always been an advocate and which has great value in German football." (Dietmar Hopp, possibly planning his future as a BVB ultra)
 


Surprised to see Nubels name mentioned and that Bayern are 'impressed' by his performances. I thought he's been pretty average despite Stuttgarts good form and it's pretty clear he isn't good enough to replace Neuer. Would be worse than when Rensing tried to replace Kahn for one season, and I liked Rensing.
 
Germany lead 1:0 at halftime, Brunner scored a penalty after VAR intervention. We have been the better team this far and the lead is deserved but far from a sure thing yet. Looking forward to the second half.
 
Osawe sent off for a completely unneccessary foul in the 68th minute isn't going to be helpful, even if they are leading 2:1. Still more than enough time for France to turn it around with a numerical advantage. And the resulting freekick immediatly made the defense look dodgy.
 
So it went to penalties... closer than it had to be, but who cares, we are World Cup Winners now :cool:
 
Won on penalties.

Didn't see any match in full length, only highlights, so hard to judge the quality or potential of the players. On the face of it it is encouraging to see this group win two titles, but then again our U-21 has been incredible in the last half decade but do great players have come out of those squads, especially the latest ones.

It's been really discouraging to see most of the best young players in the league, and those being signed by the bigger teams, are foreign, especially from France. Does show that clubs themselves don't trust the young players in Germany, hopefully that can change soon.
 
Paper thin defense for Dortmund:


Leverkusen with their standard lineup:
 
do.ob said:
If anyone can stop Xabi it's clearly Edin Terzic.
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(You really should get rid of him. Dortmund is going absolutely nowhere with that dude.)
For some reason I thought the game was in Dortmund. Okay….. maybe squeeze out a draw? Pretty please
 
Beautiful and well deserved goal by Wirtz, Boniface offside though.
 
Dortmund can't stop Bayern from winning the title but they're definitely doing their best to stop Leverkusen here. :lol:
 
Acrobat7 said:
(You really should get rid of him. Dortmund is going absolutely nowhere with that dude.)
For some reason I thought the game was in Dortmund. Okay….. maybe squeeze out a draw? Pretty please
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I don't know with Terzic anymore. I think for the first about 40 minutes you could see the team had a plan in defense and it worked quite well. But there's just too many sloppy turnovers, that wear down their confidence in possession and invite the opposition into increasing dominance. Could be Terzic's fault, but the team also simply lacks individual attacking quality at the moment.
 
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If Dortmund took points off Bayern as well, it'd all be fine. Instead they make it as hard as possible for any other challenger, yet get destroyed by Bayern whenever they face each other.

At this point Dortmund are almost enabling the Bayern monopoly. So please gift Leverkusen the points, ok? :p
 
Meunier cross into Füllkrug last second wineer would have been a proper ending to the match.
 
do.ob said:
I don't know with Terzic anymore. I think for the first about 40 minutes you could see the team had a plan in defense and it worked quite well. But there's just too many sloppy turnovers, that wear down their confidence in possession and invite the opposition into increasing dominance. Could be Terzic's fault, but the team also simply lacks individual attacking quality at the moment.
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I don’t know how involved he is in the transfers but the team simply looks so uninspiring. A random selection of physical players that want to outfight the other team. But you are not Bochum.
 
First time I can remember where I was actively wanting Dortmund to lose a match. Leverkusen the better side but a dogged defensive effort from Dortmund as well, Fullkrug almost winning it in the end though.

Hummels forgetting it's not 2014 but rather 2023, another really good performance. One blip being him completely forgetting Schik was on the pitch and leaving him open.
 
Acrobat7 said:
I don’t know how involved he is in the transfers but the team simply looks so uninspiring. A random selection of physical players that want to outfight the other team. But you are not Bochum.
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I don't think you can blame Terzic for most of the transfers, in his first season the business was basically already done before Rose got sacked. Modeste was a desperate reaction to Haller's diagnosis. Ryerson was great value for money, Duranville looks like a promising talent.

In his second season we have Nmecha, who showed some promise, but had maybe 5 games where he wasn't affected by injury. So it's hard to judge that transfer at all.
Sabitzer is neither here nor there. A useful player to have.
Füllkrug has been doing alright for an emergency signing.
Bensebaini has failed to impress, but there were reports that he was all Kehl and Terzic doesn't like his profile that much. Also that Dortmund were offered Grimaldo, but by then Kehl had already comitted himself to Bensebaini.

If you look at the past three years Malen and Adeyemi stand out to me: both can be useful players, signing either one maybe would have been okay. But signing both just seems like a waste, as neither is a proper winger or play maker. That's €60m on wide players without getting a stable top player within 2.5 - 1.5 years. Not something Dortmund can really afford.

Then you have the injuries again: Bynoe-Gittens (he seems to be getting there now) and Duranville maybe could have been much-needed options on the wing, but both of them missed about a year with injuries each. Haller's form towards the end of last season suggested that he could have been a formidable striker, but he's only been able to play on that level for like 3 out of 18 months. Between Füllkrug and Modeste that's about €25m spent to cover for his absence. That could have been a full back. Nmecha's first half-season has basically been a write-off, too. And those are precisely the players that would ideally make a difference with the ball.
 
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I think you can play much better and especially more ambitious football with the players in that Dortmund squad. They'd look completely different with another coach. As a Dortmund fan, I'd be all for sacking Terzic by now as it is not going to get any better under him. There will be purple patches as you can always get results by playing negative football and sometimes you'll even get long purple patches but it will always lack consistency.

But it's not Terzic alone. The strategic direction they chose is just completely off so that means Watzke, Kehl and Sammer deserve criticism as well. I really don't get what they were thinking. Probably they believed the stupid mentality debate themselves.
 
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