Borussia Dortmund bosses don’t mince words after 3-1 loss to Lazio

Borussia Dortmund opened their Champions League campaign with a stinker against Lazio, suffering a 3-1 defeat to the Italian side.

Borussia Dortmund embarrassed themselves on Tuesday in the opening game of the Champions League Group stage. Although they didn’t have a number of first choice stars available, there’s no excuses to be made for the performance they turned in, thoroughly underperforming in all aspects of the game. They were sloppy defensively, in the build up and failed to make the most of their chances over and over again until the game was simply out of reach.

Dortmund conceded three very avoidable goals against Lazio, all of them coming in situations where they heavily outnumbered the attackers in their own box. The first goal was former Dortmund man, Ciro Immobile taking advantage of a wasteful turnover near the Dortmund box. The second, a header off a corner that they failed to mark their man all the way through, which is such a familiar story to this team. Finally the third coming against the run of play as Immobile hit Dortmund on the counter, finding Jean-Daniel Akpa-Akpro for a simple tap in. All completely avoidable with a bit more awareness and defensive structure.

Several of those in charge, including Sebastian Kehl, Lucien Favre and even club Captain Marco Reus had very strong words after the game, with their post game quotes below.

"“We were not determined enough at the front and did not defend compactly. That was simply poor. We lacked everything today. That is really bad in a Champions League game. The whole team did not play well. We didn’t play well together as a team, didn’t defend well and deserved to lose”. – Marco Reus"

These are frank but accurate words from the Borussia Dortmund captain who wasted no time assessing his squad’s poor performance. Dortmund simply weren’t good enough in any way shape or form, although the sting from the game is still there it’s somewhat refreshing to see the issues addressed up front.

"“It was a desolate performance, especially in the first half. We made a lot of mistakes and absolutely deserved to lose. We can’t play like that in the Champions League. If we continue to perform like this, we will have a hard time reaching the next round”. – Sebastian Kehl"

It was more of the same from Sebastian Kehl, also not impressed with the commitment the team played with. Lucien Favre’s quotes were along the same vein of thought as well although he ended was already looking ahead to the next games.

"“I didn’t see a lot of good things. We still had four or five chances to score. We should have been more patient – and I’m not just talking about defence. The first goal was an unnecessary ball loss, a gift. We were not there. Some players were good, but many were not good.”“We did well in Hoffenheim, but we did not do well here. We definitely didn’t make a good start. But there are four more games and against Lazio another home game – we will make it. But I am very disappointed”. – Lucien Favre"

As bad as the performance was, Lucien Favre does hit on an important point that there are still five more games to play in the group stage. Although they haven’t made it any easier on themselves, if they perform anywhere near the level they should Dortmund shouldn’t have too much trouble qualifying for the knockout rounds.