Borussia Dortmund's managing director Lars Ricken admitted their side lacked cohesion during the 1-0 defeat to Cerezo Osaka on Wednesday.
The Black and Yellow are currently in Japan for their BVB Evonik Japan Tour of the 2026 preseason campaign which got off on a rocky note here.
Osaka forward Solomon Sakuragawa struck the only goal of the game in the eighth minute from a corner after former BVB star Shinji Kagawa's original effort was forced out of play.
Dortmund huffed and puffed in search of an equalizer but it never came. Ricken later felt it's largely because they fielded a group of youth players.
"“Of course we want to win games like this, especially since there were so many BVB fans in attendance. But to be honest, we have to admit that today we saw a team made up of U19 and U23 players, with only a few first team players. We simply lack that instinctive chemistry. Our opponent is already a bit further along.""he told the press after the game
The first team stars who were involved in the World Cup only joined the side after the Dusseldorf game but were missing from the matchday squad today as Kovac stuck with the same group of players that appeared in their previous two friendlies back home in Germany.
But Ricken assured that all their World Cup players - except for Julian Ryerson and Gregor Kobel, who have been given some additional time off for playing until the quarter-finals - will return for their next match.
""Unfortunately, we weren’t able to bring the quality we’ve shown in training over the last few days onto the field today. The national team players will be back for the next game. It’s just part of preseason that things don’t always go smoothly every now and then.”"added Ricken
Return of World Cup stars for Tokyo clash
Going by Ricken's words, Borussia Dortmund are set to welcome back Waldemar Anton, Maximilian Beier, Felix Nmecha, Daniel Svensson and Carney Chukwuemeka into the fold.
All these players reported back to work last week and were expected to play a part in the clash to Osaka today but perhaps the lack of training promoted Kovac to rest them here.
But by the time their next friendly rolls around, which is on 1 August, it would almost be a week since their return and hence could be given a chance to feature against FC Tokyo.
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