In an interview after the match against Leverkusen, captain Marcel Schmelzer made it clear that BVB were unable to carry out their match plan, stating that “we needed to put their strikers under more pressure.”

image

Schmelle, how was the match for you?

We did not play well. We knew that Leverkusen were going to come at us early on with energy and aggression. We actually wanted to try and play off the opponent, one against one. We didn’t do a good job with our finals balls, which didn’t make it easy for ourselves. Just passing the ball and seeing what happens is not enough, especially against a team that builds so much pressure. 

Were your opponents a little too rough?

Today during the first half I found it a bit too much on some occasions, and there was a phase where Leverkusen were shown many yellow cards. Aranguiz could have been booked well before, not even three minutes into the match. In the first half it was a little excessive. But in football you are allowed to go in hard and that’s why yellow cards are given.

"We need to adapt as a team"

As a team, how can you respond to this?

We need to adapt as a team. Just because an opponent defends aggressively does not mean that we have to adjust our entire game. We have to have faith that we can outplay our opponents, and that they know they will be second best on the pitch.

You have now lost against two opponents, who understood in particular the importance of taking Julian Weigl out of the game. What is missing from the team in this respect?

We aren’t lacking ways of preventing this. The idea was to try and stop this happening, we just weren’t able to pull it off. We needed to put their strikers under more pressure to make it easier for our teammates when playing the pass. If we could have pulled this off, more could have been possible.

"We will take our time"

Did you sense a loss in substance after the intense past few weeks?

We had a very intense phase and we shouldn’t forget that we have many young players and that our team hasn’t been together for that long. We have a few injuries at the moment and only two fit centre backs. We have to learn from matches like this against Leverkusen and do better against teams in the future that start so quickly.

It is irritating not to have been able to move above Bayern today?          

Of course we want to stick to them as closely as possible, because Bayern dropped points. But we still have a lot left planned for this season. But like I said – we team hasn’t been a collective unit for long. Therefore we will take our time.

Report by Dennis-Julian Gottschlich