While Celtic defeated Falkirk 5 to 1 last weekend, Borussia Dortmund, their opponents in the UEFA Champions League, lost to Stuttgart by the same amount.
The Bundesliga team had won two of its previous three league games and drew one, but the latter outcome shocked them to the point that new manager Nuri Sahin declared he would never tolerate such a performance.
Dortmund supporters were understandably dissatisfied with their team’s crushing defeat, with many pointing to their team’s pressing—or lack thereof—as a major contributing factor.
One person vented his anger on the Borussia Dortmund subreddit, writing: “I’ve seen that we press high with a few players in several of our games right now, but the defensive line and midfielders don’t really get up as much. That had to be deliberate, but in my opinion it looks awful and doesn’t function at all.”
Another person concurred, saying, “The only position where we are stacked is wings. Pressing to create a space between midfielders and forwards is ineffective. You [must] act as a unit and be correct.”
“What I don’t get is we saw excellent press earlier in the season with the friendly against Aston Villa (yes I know it’s a friendly) and the game against Frankfurt,” added another. “The press should be getting better with more time together, not worse.”
The user proposed that the reason behind Dortmund’s apparent urgent issue dates back to 2015, when Jurgen Klopp left the team.
“It’s more to do with legacy training systems,” they explained. “When Klopp left there was a disjointed defensive response between those trained by him to press and those who joined after.”
Brendan Rodgers’ high-intensity press and counter-press is, of course, a crucial component of his style of play; the Celtic manager has emphasized this point several times this season, last season, and during his first stint as manager from 2016 to 2019.
Both clubs prevailed in their opening Champions League league phase games: Celtic defeated Slovan Bratislava 5-1 at Parkhead, while Dortmund defeated Club Brugge 3-0 on the road. However, Celtic will probably anticipate a different matchup in Germany.
