1.FC Köln has stopped the winning run of the Borussia Dortmund U19 team and luckily won the Evonik RUHR-Cup International by 1-0. Jannik Mause took advantage of an error by Borussia keeper Dominik Reimann to score the goal of the day in front of an official crowd of 2100 fans at the Rote Erde stadium. On the other side FC goalie Jannick Theiβen prevented the equaliser with a brilliant save from Jakob Bruun’s shot.

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Lars Ricken

BVB Head Coach Hannes Wolf rested his key players like Pulisic, Burnic, Sarra, Aydogan or Schumacher for the first half, as they had been playing a lot recently and this way he could make sure that the pressure of too many games was evenly distributed. Borussia, with Felix Passlack back fit, struggled over the full 80 minutes to be organised in the way they built up their attacks. Köln were very clever in the way they defended and they didn’t leave any space to be exploited. Dortmund did look to be in control, but they didn’t create any clear chances on goal after the break.

BVB Academy Co-ordinator Lars Ricken acknowledged: “Köln really did a good job in defence. We lacked some freshness after the five tight group matches and the semi-final, so that we could not make the most of our attacks. But this was exactly the type of difficult test that we hoped we would have before we start back in the league. All in all we played very well in the tournament.”

Next Sunday, 9.August, the Borussia U19 will have their first serious match. They will face 1.FSV Mainz 05 in the first round of the DFB Cup at the training ground in Brackel. Wilfried Wittke