re: Match Day 2/24 Champions League

That header

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Well it kept them theoretically alive for the next leg
Don't think they do it but at least it's still possible now.

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For sure, at least there's a slight bit of hope. Pellegrini just has to go balls to the wall attacking in the return leg, not looking good, but at least I'll watch knowing that a miracle could happen.

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so, brentford kind of kicked blackpool's arse tonight

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Arsenal loanee Jon Toral with a hat trick and ran the match..

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Dortmund blows.

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The talent is there, the system seems decent as well, but there is just zero execution. It's like the team got together and agreed to just not give a frick this season.

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I don't know about not caring. They work extremely hard -- their players cover twice the ground most others do.

I don't watch them much but it seems they are much better recently as they won their last 3 or 4.


However, vs Juve today there were some glaring problems and those may be why they were in such a funk:

1) The Press:
the desire and effort to press are there but it so often seemed more like a last 5 minutes desperation tactic than a high percentage one.

If they're going to press like they want to do, the midfielders/wingers have to be winning the ball, forcing a back pass or the opponent to pull back attackers 90+% of the time because they're sitting ducks when it's broken.

Dortmund were hardly going better than 60-40% in either nicking the ball or at least forcing a Juve back pass. Juve never had to pull attackers back and they hardly ever lost the ball without their complete defensive line still in position.


Juve's problem was that they were very poor picking out final passes. Juve probably had 7 or 8 of the match's best 10 chances: (the 2 goals, the 3 shots that missed by inches + the many times a pass was missed in a 3 vs 2 jailbreak. Even Dortmund's goal didn't come from their pressure at all but simply from a long anywhere-will-do clearance where a Juve defender slipped & fell down.

It seemed every time Juve broke the press they had a 2 vs 2 with the CBs with just as many (or more) Juve midfielders rushing in to support the attack as Dortmund defenders.


2) All three of Dortmund's wingbacks and Aubameyang (though he hardly seems a winger even if he's playing there) were very poor in picking out smart passes the times they won the ball and they were all over the place pressing and losing the ball.

3) GK/Corners: Weidenfeller was awful. The first Juve goal wasn't quite as easy as commentators made it seem but he could have punched it instead of trying to grab it. It wasn't close to his worst moment, that was the misjudged corner which luckily for him bounced off his own leg accidentally to prevent the 3 Juve players surrounding him from tapping it in.

It wasn't the only time Dortmund was poor defending corners. You had the feeling Juve may score on almost every one and should have twice where I recall at least 2 missed, unmarked, headers.




All that said, though, it's sometimes better to be lucky and they got the goal where Chiellini fell down and that should put the tie totally up for grabs going back to Dortmund.