Borussia Dortmund Mid Season Review
Defensive stability, despite injuries
The defensive aspect of Borussia Dortmund’s game has seen a vast improvement under Lucien Favre. The first half of the Bundesliga season has illustrated this perfectly, with Dortmund having allowed only 18 goals so far. This is attributed to the fact that the team has been much less shaky at the back. The first thing to note is the success of Favre’s preferred center back pairing, Manuel Akanji and Abdou Diallo. The two young center backs have complimented each other well, covering for each other when one strides forward to provide a pass for his teammates.
Both players have proven very capable of defending and linking up with the team. In Akanji’s case, the center back has averaged 3.7 clearances per game and maintained a pass success percentage of 92% in the Bundesliga alone. His counterpart Diallo brings similarly impressive statistics to the table, with an average of 3.5 clearances per game and a pass success percentage of 90.1%. Both players have fit Favre’s system perfectly with their ability to defend and play purposeful passes forward.
It cannot be said that everything has been entirely rosy in the defensive department for Dortmund, however. Injuries to both Diallo and Akanji have kept both players out at times during the season, keeping the long tradition of an active injury list at the club alive and well. The most recent injury woe has come from Akanji’s hip inury in Dortmund’s loss to Düsseldorf last month. The club has provided a positive update on the matter, stating that they expect the young Swiss international to return in the spring.
Coupled with this, injuries to the likes of Marcel Schmelzer have further thinned out the defensive options Dortmund have been able to work with this season. These injuries, for once it can be said, haven’t hampered Dortmund in the usual fashion one would expect this season. This can be attributed to players such as Dan Axel Zagadou and Achraf Hakimi stepping up and taking the opportunity to show their talents to great effect.
In the absence of Schmelzer, Halkimi has become Dortmund’s first choice left back, no questions asked. The Moroccan international has been a sensation, linking up especially well with the likes of Raphaël Guerreiro, who has seemingly found his future on Dortmund’s left wing. Hakimi’s pace and trickery has been mesmerizing to watch, and has been equally effective offensively has it has been defensively. Hakimi has used his skills to shut down attackers and join in the attack. The game against Werder Bremen in mid December exemplified this perfectly.
Hakimi made crucial tackles that game to stifle Bremen’s attempts at finding a leveler, while at the same time this particular game saw his partnership with Guerreiro on the left blossom, their interplay something I took as a key takeaway from the match. It is something I hope Favre will take into account and exploit to the teams benefit in the second half of the season.
Dan Axel Zagadou, for his part, showed great composure and skill for a player of his age. The young Frenchman was a rock for Dortmund in many of the games he took the field, most notably in the 4-0 thrashing of Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. Zagadou started alongside Diallo and played a very important role in keeping both Diego Costa and Antoine Griezmann quiet, despite certain protests and antics the Atletico players, specifically Costa, would toss in his direction.
He too was the unfortunate victim of injury in December, but the likes of Ömer Toprak and Julian Weigl have been able to steady the ship in Zagadou’s, Diallo’s and Akanji’s absences as well.