Three takeaways from Borussia Dortmund’s draw against AC Milan

Emre Can must get used to a backup role

Edin Terzic has now in both Champions league games so far has played players out of position to poor effect. He decided to go with Emre Can as a number 8 in his two man midfield on Wednesday. It was strange to see the club captain return to the starting XI as he hadn’t really done much to suggest he was deserving of a prompt recall prior to his benching.

While theoretically more defensive than Nmecha, Can wasn’t able to put that into practice as he picked up a yellow due to bad positioning and was beaten by Rafael Leão in the first-half (leading to a yellow for Nico Schlotterbeck). His poor positioning then led to a yellow card for Mats Hummels as well.

Playing Can on the same side of the midfield as Leão did little to stop the Portuguese forward from beating Can with skill and taking advantage of his bad positioning. Leão was finding space both in behind and in between the defensive and midfield lines, with Can unable to limit his progress.

In possession, Emre Can was poor as well. Picking up the ball in midfield, the BVB captain was supposed to play a ball wide left to Malen, who found joy a few times running at Calabria. Can, however, was very inefficient in playing these balls. He often tried to dribble to the middle of the pitch before playing the pass, allowing the Milan defence to limit space for the Borussia Dortmund attack.

Then once attempting to actually play the pass to Malen, Can’s balls were either over or under hit. Can even mishit four passes consecutively, though Malen was able to get his head on one, this ended up out of play when it could have led to a chance. This pass was key to Terzic’s plan and a midfielder should be able to switch play accurately.