Borussia Dortmund Early Season Analysis

Following a positive start to the season, Borussia Dortmund have fallen upon a relatively poor run of form heading into the international break.

Thomas Tuchel’s front five approach garnered results in the first few games of the season, with 17 goals in three games at one point, but as the season inches further forward, Dortmund’s fiery start seems to be cooling.

Though the quality of opponent hasn’t always been stellar, results against Wolfsburg and Real Madrid show that this isn’t a case of the schoolyard bully picking on kids half his size. Tuchel’s attack can kick it with the best of them; it’s a matter of maximizing the attacking potential regardless of the opponent.

A Borussia Dortmund Analysis

Obviously, simply stating that maximizing attacking efficiency against every opponent is a rather vague statement, so let’s delve into what BVB’s most effective attack looks like, and how the team can consistently recreate it.

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Some Stats do Lie, and Not All are Created Equal

Though grading the quality of chances through football analytics is something that’s relatively new to the industry, many forget and assume that it’s already a perfect science.

Expected Goals (xG), packing metrics, and other in-depth statistical measures are all imperfect systems that seek to provide detailed quantitative analysis of specific situations in football.

They may not be perfect, but the argument that they shouldn’t be taken seriosuly because they’re not exact is invalid.

No stat is perfect. In fact, most current singular statistics that are widely accepted amongst casual sports fans don’t provide any context and can often be misleading. Example:

Team A:                                                                       Team B:

Total attempts/ On Target: 18/13                        14/12

Deliveries into penalty area: 19                             11

Clearances: 4                                                               20

Possession: 52%                                                         48%

Team A was probably the winner, right? Wrong. Team A was Brazil and Team B was Germany in the semi-final of the 2014 World Cup. (Max Regenhuber also used this example in an article about packing in a very similar format, check it out here)

With the example provided above, one can clearly see that context in addition to data is important. A prominent barrier that the analytics community faces is that of translation to ordinary language. Unless you’re a complete football nerd like myself, you’re probably not willing to sit there and read archaically written paragraph after paragraph about what statistical nuance you should be paying attention to.

However, within the dense script of analytical jargon lies the key to understanding your team better and ultimately football as a whole. For me, that’s what it’s all about; creating an intelligent debate about football that’s rooted in evidence rather than intangibles. With all that being said, the fragmented evidence regarding the efficiency of chance creation that can be found out there on the vast, bleak, seemingly infinite interweb can be contradictory.

Some experts state that they’re sample size indicated the most efficient chance creation happened on the edges of the box, others state it’s within *zone 14, others perhaps elsewhere, the point being that football is proving excruciatingly difficult to quantify because of its scope on a global scale, the manner of ways in which you can score a goal, and the randomness of real life situations among other reasons.

For example, when analyzing the France 98 squad, one comes to the conclusion that Zinedine Zidane’s role as a number ten in zone 14 yields the highest amount of high fidelity chances. However, analyzing Liverpool in the 13/14 season shows that chances created on the outer edges of the box are of a better quality than in any other area.

So who’s right? The solution may disappoint you, but William of Ockham will be pleased to hear his philosophical teaching rings true; the explanation with the least assumptions is the more likely one. A la Occam’s Razor, the efficiency of the attack is based on how the team is most successful from previous results and the qualities of the personnel.

If a team historically enjoys success off the counter with high crosses because they have fast wingers and an aerially proficient striker, then they will most likely enjoy success when pursuing that type of chance creation. So what kind of chance creation does Tuchel’s Dortmund thrive of off?

Zone 14 and Julian Weigl

Many tacticians have spoken about the importance of creating chances in the right areas, specifically, zone 14. It’s simply a numeration for the area right above the opposition’s penalty box. After analyzing each of the 27 goals that BVB have scored this season, it becomes apparent that incorporating this zone in the offensive buildup is the key to success for this team.

51% of Dortmund’s goals this season have been directly from or started in zone 14, and that’s excluding the shots on target created from play that involved this critical area. In fact, there’s only one game in which Dortmund have won that didn’t include any goals created from zone 14.

The reason this area is so advantageous for Die Schwarzgelben in specific is for two main reasons; the width created by Tuchel’s front five stretches the opposition’s back line and dishevels the defense, leaving gaps for players to make late runs into, and the abundance of BVB players that are proficient in tight spaces makes zone 14 a prime area to hold possession.

Even a large portion of the goals scored from chances created in wide areas aren’t the traditional cross-and-score type. Since the opposition back line is so disjointed due to the overload of yellow shirts in a forward area, the line separating on sides and offsides becomes increasingly difficult to hold, allowing for players to make and find space within the 18-yard box. This means that Tuchel needs to focus on two things: ensuring chance creation from zone 14 and avoiding cross inefficiency.

Getting the ball into the area mentioned earlier starts way before the ball is moved into an offensive area. The successfully playing with so many forward players lies within the buildup. This is why Julian Weigl is so important. Part of what made BVB so successful against Real and so terrible against Leverkusen was the possession, and later on lack thereof, in central midfield.

Against Real, Weigl was elite in moving the ball between the lines and connecting the attack to the defense, allowing for the creation of chances both out wide and through the middle. Leverkusen was a different story. Since Roger Schmidt’s men sat in a medium block, the midfield area was more constricted than it usually is, and though Weigl didn’t have a bad game, he failed to connect the play in key sectors.

In these situations, BVB needs a technically proficient midfielder sitting next to the young German that can create space and move the ball forward. Mario Götze seems like the perfect player to complement number 33 in these difficult situations considering his range of passing and ability in small spaces.

For whatever reason, the former Bayern star seems to have lost a step, making him a bit too slow for the pace required in order to be consistently dangerous in the ten slot. However, the once bright yellow star can restore his heroic status in Dortmund by being the number six that this team needs against difficult defenses.

The more important of the two focuses is avoiding cross inefficiency because it directly affects defense and attack. As stated before, BVB’s most efficient crossing isn’t bombing it in and hoping for the best because the team lacks a target man. Incisive ground crosses with plenty of targets moving dynamically is the crossing situation this team thrives off of, not only because of the greater chance of scoring but because aimless crossing leaves the team open to counter attacks.

Jan Vercer, a professor at the Frankfurt school of finance and management, studied the efficacy of crossing in the Premier League for five seasons and found that crossing as a whole is not only inefficient but also negatively impacts the team in possession when unsuccessful.

Next: Borussia Dortmund v Bayer Leverkusen: Analysis

This is especially important for BVB when you look at how many players they like to pile forward in possession. If BVB are to have success this season, it will be because they ensured quality possession made it to zone 14 by any means necessary, and also because they avoided crossing inefficiency.