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Post-Match Report

Sahin on the flu outbreak:"Like a bad joke"

Borussia Dortmund suffered an astonishing injury crisis in the autumn, which presented the coaching team with new challenges time and again. When training resumed on 2 January after the short winter ‘break’, with almost the entire squad back on board, the team enthusiastically set about the task of making up ground. That was until a flu outbreak confined 12 members of the team and coaching staff to bed..

"To be honest, it was like a bad joke," said Nuri Sahin, looking back on the 48 hours leading up to the home game against Bayer Leverkusen: "Every hour there was a piece of news that another player was out." As a result, the team trained in small groups instead of with the entire squad, "because we wanted to be careful, we had to be careful," said Sahin late on Friday evening after the 3-2 home defeat against the team placed second in the table.

The backline was composed of players who had never lined up together (Couto, Ryerson, Lührs, Kabar).  "We had to bring in Almu despite his illness," said the coach about starting line-up debutant Almugera Kabar, who was the only stricken member of the squad to recover (almost) in time.

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The team, weakened in defence, fought back and came back from 2-0 down early on (eighth minute) with goals from Jamie Gittens to make it 2-1 and Serhou Guirassy to make it 3-2, but then failed to register any further shots on goal against the ruthless visitors. "We could have sat deep. But we wanted to play football, we wanted to be brave," said Sahin about the game, in which a point would have been well deserved given the 11-7 shots on goal, 65% possession and a passing completion rate of 90% (compared to 79% for Leverkusen). "We were lacking rhythm, both with and without the ball. We don't have to talk about the goals we conceded. Even with the line-up we had they were far too easy," said the BVB head coach. 

The next chance for the first three points of the year will come with an away game on Tuesday - hopefully with a slightly improved line-up. It won't be against the reigning champions, but rather one of the two newly promoted teams: Holstein Kiel.
Boris Rupert

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