SCHOCKIERENDE NACHRICHT: BORUSSIA DORTMUND HAT SEINEN BESTEN SPIELER ENDLICH NACH DORTMUND ZURÜCKGEHOLT, UM ZU SPIELEN, ABER WIR ZAHLEN NICHT NOCHMALS, WARUM

VfL Wolfsburg v Borussia Dortmund – Bundesliga

Photo by Jürgen Fromme – firo sportphoto/Getty Images

Few things in life are constant, like the sun rising and setting every day and Borussia Dortmund surprising us with their inconsistency. Admittedly, I was feeling rather pessimistic heading into the match. BVB had yet to record an away win in the league, and Wolfsburg knocked us out of the cup not long ago. Today, however, I was pleasantly surprised by a BVB squad who looked absolutely unstoppable… in the first half.

The second half was a completely different story, with near constant pressure from Wolfsburg. This was a totally different half, and Pascal Groß’s red cad left Dortmund a man down for the better part of a half hour. Being a Dortmund fan means being nervous we might lose despite a two goal advantage. But our defenders stood strong, and the Black and Yellows won an incredibly important game before heading into the winter break. This should give everyone in Dortmund some relief, especially trainer Nuri Sahin.

Attacking Creativity

When I saw the lineup, I was excited. I’ve been waiting for a chance to see Guirassy and Beier as dual-strikers up front. It’s no secret Maxi Beier has struggled to integrate into BVB’s squad this season, but my biggest criticism of him has been his wing play, but that’s not terribly fair because Beier is NOT traditionally a winger. When Beier plays up front, he’s much more effective, and we were reminded of that today with both his goal and assist. This is what happens when Beier is pushed into his natural position; he’s unleashed and he looks like the 30-million player BVB paid for.

What was perhaps the most notable improvement to Dortmund’s Creativity however, was the return of Julian Brandt and his influence in the attacking third. Not only did he score and assist, he was also playing accurate long-balls and through-balls, he brought out the best in his teammates in the first half, and acted as the creative catalyst we know he can be. That was exciting!

Disappointing Guirassy

If you’ve read some of my other match reactions, you’ll probably know that I’m not the biggest fan of Serhou Guirassy. Again we saw him dive in an instance he was lucky to avoid a yellow card for simulation. Nearly every time he was in a promising position on the pitch, Guirassy collapsed. For a guy who is over six feet tall, he goes down far too easily. If he spent as much effort trying to score as he does trying to draw contact, he’d surely score more. Guirassy is a target-man, and he seems to do very little off the ball. Where’s the hustle?

Guirassy also had two misses in the first half that he should have converted. You can’t speak to the media and call yourself one of the top-three strikers in the Bundesliga when there are fifteen players in the league who have scored more goals from open play this season than you. Guirassy’s performances have done little to convince me he’s capable of replicating his form from last season.

Winning Despite the Okay, that was one of the worst officiating displays I’ve seen this year. Every once in a while, a referee will completely throw the rulebook out the window in order to exert their authority on the match. Today Matthias Joellenbeck decided he was going to officiate to his own prerogative, meanwhile the VAR booth proved once again the inconsistent subjectivity of determining what is a “clear and obvious” officiating error. Clearly, Joellenbeck made several errors, but they didn’t seem to be “clear and obvious” enough. The way I see it- these ARE fouls or they’re NOT. How many PK’s would Bayern Munich have been awarded if they played Wolfsburg today?

While some may disagree with me on this, the red card to Pascal Groß was the wrong call by technicality. I reviewed the replays before writing this. I’m not arguing Groß’s foul, but he was NOT the last defender, Nico Schlotterbeck was. That means this was NOT a breakaway, and NOT a denial of a clear goal-scoring opportunity. It was a tactical, technical foul which should have resulted in a yellow. In addition, a red card is a match-altering decision, and Matthias Joellenbeck was nowhere near this foul. He’s so far down the other side of the pitch that he isn’t even visible in the replay. The fact that VAR didn’t intervene in this one is another example of their complete and utter failure of existence. What’s the point in even having it?

The late yellow card to Yan Couto for not immediately taking a throw-in when the ref ordered him to is another example of Joellenbeck’s decision to officiate by his own set of rules. The referee DOES NOT determine which players can and cannot take throw-ins or kick dead balls. If this is how Joellenbeck decides to officiate matches in the future, he should be removed from the circuit because he so obviously needs a refresher of the rules of football. That, or he needs his ego che

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