Post-Match Report
Nuri Sahin: "Achieving the fundamentals is the most important thing"
"I always wanted to get as close as possible," he said about his coaching debut in the stadium where he had played as a ball boy as a child and where he had worn the BVB jersey 134 times. "It was a real butterflies-in-the-stomach moment. I'd been looking forward to the game all day and I'd be lying if I said anything else."
In contrast, his team's overall successful performance in the 2-0 dress rehearsal in front of 81,365 spectators against English Champions League participants Aston Villa seemed to have been "played with ease". "The friendly was good, not perfect of course, but it's going in the right direction," summarised Sahin in a hoarse voice. His intensive style of coaching had left an audible mark. "We had a lot of good moments, dominating with and without the ball throughout the game. The most important thing is that we achieve the fundamentals. I like the fact that we do everything together. We work together with and without the ball."
He has trained his team to be tactically versatile. Against the team that finished fourth in the Premier League last year, Sahin surprised the fans by naming Karim Adeyemi up front ("We wanted one more quick player who can get into the spaces") and with a back three instead of a back four in build-up play, with one fullback pushing high up the pitch: Couto on the right in the first half and Bensebaini on the left in the second. "We will try out many variations," Sahin hinted.
Preparations are still ongoing. And since the players who took part in the European Championship have only been back for ten days, it will continue beyond the first competitive matches and into September. Sahin watched a convincing 2-0 win against Aston Villa on Saturday. But nothing more. "We've had preseasons before when we've looked like world beaters, then the real thing starts and it's far more difficult," he said, obviously recalling his own experiences as a player. In 2007, they beat Italy's then runners-up AS Roma 4-0 at the same venue. Sahin: "We'll see where we stand on Saturday in Hamburg." Borussia Dortmund will face 1. FC Phoenix Lübeck in the first round of the DFB-Pokal. Their opponents celebrated a 1-0 victory against the second string of Hamburger SV in the Regionalliga Nord on Saturday and have already been in league action for a fortnight.
Boris Rupert