With Borussia Dortmund struggling to get results, Lucien Favre switched to a back three last month. But can the formation change help Der BVB get back on track?
Lucien Favre sits in a precarious position. Sporadic form has made rhetoric surrounding his performance ebb and flow throughout the season. The most recent wave of abuse was released by an embarrassing 4-0 Der Klassiker loss and a 3-3 draw with relegation-battlers Padderborn in November.
With calls for his sacking bouncing around the walls of the Westfalenstadion, the Dortmund trainer attempted to improve results by altering his team, dropping a central midfielder into defense and moving the full-backs higher into midfield, a 3-4-3. Out of possession, the flanking midfielders drop into defense, creating a five at the back. The ball-playing responsibilities of the defensive midfielder lost in this transition are then carried by the the the most central defender, leaving the two interior midfielders to handle progression and press higher up the pitch.
After the shift to this formation, Dortmund won their next four games in the Bundesliga , including a 5-0 rout of Fortuna Dusseldorf. However, like all good things for Borussia Dortmund this season, it has come to a sputtering end. Warning signs began to appear when three individual errors muted an excellent performance against league leaders Red Bull Leipzig, and culminated one week later when the Black and Yellows fell to a defeat at the hands of seventh place Hoffenheim.
This leads to the question: Was the change in formation mostly aesthetic, or was it a tactical improvement?