Borussia Dortmund have successfully defended their spot at the top of the Bundesliga table, recording a decisive 3-1 win late in stoppage time at home against Hertha Berlin.
For periods the visitors were the first team to genuinely trouble Dortmund this campaign, fielding a highly compact and deep-lying formation. In the end, BVB’s dexterity got the better of Hertha’s physicality.
It was pretty clear from the outset that in Hertha, the Black and Yellows were facing the biggest challenge of their yet very young season – three days earlier, they had put in a full shift to clinch qualification for the Europa League group phase, and to make matters worse, now the Westfalenstadion was oppressively hot, with the sun relentlessly beaming over the pitch.
Yet the biggest problem was not the 33 degree temperature on an early autumn day in Germany, but posed by the opposition, whose coach Pal Dardai had found an astute recipe to combat Dortmund’s rediscovered love for possession play. For all that, the hosts’ first real breakthrough resulted in Mats Hummels’ cool header, which made for a decent 1-0 lead at half-time. After scoring, BVB looked a little less subdued, notching-up a second well-deserved goal but subsequently squandering a host of sitters. Frustratingly, this breathed life back into Hertha’s squad, who consequentially got one back late in the game.
Dortmund appeared a little overwhelmed by Berlin suddenly opening the game up and increasing their pace, spectactors were almost certainly reminded of similar story lines last season, where the Black and Yellows seemed destined to give away points at the end due to all the chances not taken earlier on. This time, however, it did not transpire. Instead, in a last charge for the third goal needed to claim the top of the table spot, substitute Adrian Ramos struck home against his old club after a neat Henrikh Mkhitaryan back-heel.
Formations
The hosts undertook little changes over the week, lining up in what coach Thomas Tuchel describes as a fluid 4-2-3-1/4-1-4-1 system that not only entails constant rotation between the attacking-midfielders, but is also capable of adapting to the run of play with screener Ilkay Gundogan deployed as a hybrid between the No.6 and the No.8. Sokratis Papastathopoulos returned to the starting formation alongside skipper Hummels, after fully recovering from injury.
Away from home, Hertha relied on their default 4-5-1 formation, however, striker Salomon Kalou had to step down in favour of Japanese midfielder Genki Haraguchi, who received a promotion to try his luck up front. Fabian Lustenberger filled the new void in midfield.
Sven Bender’s supposed understudy is basically flawless
A lot has been written about 19-year-old Julian Weigl, a player who was assumed to eventually succeed the likes of Bender or Nuri Sahin in the holding role. It looks like Weigl jumped that queue pretty early, consistently paying back Tuchel’s trust with close to immaculate pass rates alongside holding-midfield creative Gundogan. Even against Hertha, arguably one of his weaker performances thus far, he boasted a 95% completed pass rate. It is a stat that neither Bender himself, nor any other player on the pitch can equal, plus those passes are products of a great understanding of the game. Weigl has a neat first touch and facilitates a quicker ball flow in width and depth. He has added a new dimension to the Dortmund game – one that the visitors could not impede despite a couple of crunching tackles against him.
Berlin knew how to pull the plug on Dortmund
It is evident that Dortmund’s attacking play has undergone some changes during the summer break, meaning that they are now set about overpowering the opponent through the centre of the pitch rather than the wing-based style Jurgen Klopp promoted. It comes naturally with all the quality they feature in the offensive department and the confidence to pull-off slick combinations around the box has been restored with Tuchel’s arrival. Nevertheless things looked jittery against Berlin for the simple reason that Dardai had deftly analysed BVB’s attacking ways and set up a away side ready to swoop down on players in the middle of the park.
The number of clearances (8-25) illustrates how little Hertha chose to intervene on the movement down the wing and why future opponents are advised to keep the box locked-up. Berlin’s three attacking lines merged into two narrow defensive lines, which then saturated the box and more generally the final third of the field. Dortmund, not being as vivacious as last weekend by reason of the mid-week qualifier, did not find the gaps for incisive passes and Hertha soaked up most attacking efforts before things got dicey in the closing stages.
Under Tuchel, left and right-backs become makeshift midfielders
There is something else quite remarkable about the Dortmund side of late – left-back Marcel Schmelzer and current right-back Matthias Ginter have essentially morphed into midfielders, providing the playmakers around Gundogan and Kagawa with even more options for attack. A look at Schmelzer’s passes over 90 minutes reveals that he played about twice as many in the opponent’s half as in his own. That is an awful lot for a defender, who traditionally spends more time in his sides’ end of the field. While any coach could ask their fullbacks to venture up the field more frequently, the achievement here is to retain a stable defense that is never caught off-guard. Tuchel has done that by pulling back either Gundogan or Weigl whenever Schmelzer or Ginter make a run forward and so far the alignment is extremly functional. Berlin were the first side to score a goal against BVB this season.
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Borussia Dortmund Conclusion
Dortmund experienced their first gritty, physical opponent this season and passed the test, albeit with some shaky patches throughout. It will be pleasing for them to see their tactics yielding three wins against three very disparate opponents and Tuchel’s only concern at this point should be the international break ahead. They need to keep the momentum up but everything else is clicking right now.
Hertha Berlin Conclusion
In spite of conceding their first defeat this season, Hertha are off to a solid start. What was notable was that with Kalou being brought on, Berlin looked much livelier and suddenly threatening in front of goal. Mitchell Weiser added to Berlin’s surge as well. Expect at least Kalou to be back in the starting XI on matchday four.
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