Captain Emre Can also has to take credit for the fact that Borussia Dortmund lost in Mainz. His coach did this more clearly than his colleagues.
Embarrassed faces at Borussia Dortmund: Julian Brandt, Emre Can and coach Nuri Sahin.
imago images (3)
The bottom line is that at the end there are numbers that, as we all know, don’t lie. Borussia Dortmund's 3-1 defeat in Mainz was the fifth Bundesliga away game after which BVB still has not recorded a win away from home. Dortmund even lost four of the five games.
And yet “you have to look at this game a little differently,” at least BVB defender Nico Schlotterbeck appealed early on Saturday evening Sky. “Because you're outnumbered for 60 to 70 minutes.”
Captain Emre Can, of all people, was responsible for the outnumbered number. He had recently been criticized anyway, but then rehabilitated himself, especially in the home win against RB Leipzig. Nevertheless, after almost half an hour, the 30-year-old was far too impetuous, and the red card as a punishment for an ankle-high step with an open sole against Mainz's Jae-Sung Lee was logical.
Schlotterbeck also recognized this, but still noted that “we can play better with ten people.” Teammate Julian Brandt took the same line – and not at his captain, who had accepted his expulsion relatively uncomplainingly: “The early red card didn't necessarily help us,” admitted Brandt, “but that's not the reason why You conceded three goals. We didn't concede the goals because of Emre,” said the national team returnee in front of Can. Several individual errors were crucial.
Sahin: “He can never go there like that”
While Schlotterbeck particularly emphasized Mainz's 2-1 win by Jonathan Burkardt in stoppage time in the first half as a sticking point – “You have to save the 1-1 score into the dressing room, then you can somehow collect yourself” – BVB coach Nuri Sahin, of all people, did The idea of demonstratively defending Can was no longer valid a little later: “He's never allowed to go there like that. He knows that too,” the former Dortmund champion player argued with his captain. “That was a game changer.”
Schlotterbeck explains that the defeat in Mainz may still have been a performance that needs to be viewed differently than other setbacks of the recent past by saying that “today you can't blame anyone for not running.” There were ten people, but usually they ran behind eleven men. Brandt believes that he and his team are away from home – BVB has won all of their home games – and therefore “caught in a whirlpool” against which “only successes can help at the moment”.
Such a sense of achievement is possible again after the international break on November 27th in the Champions League at Dinamo Zagreb and on December 7th in the Borussia duel in Mönchengladbach. Before and in between, BVB welcomes SC Freiburg (November 23rd) – and FC Bayern (November 30th).
