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Augsburg Draw Perfectly Encapsulates Borussia Dortmund’s 1st Half of Season
- Updated: December 21, 2016
Borussia Dortmund closed out 2016 with another disappointing match on Tuesday, drawing 1-1 with FC Augsburg in front of their own fans.
It was the fourth draw in a row across all competitions and the third in the Bundesliga, where the Black and Yellows will now likely spend the winter break outside of the Champions League spots.
If 90 minutes can ever be enough to represent half a year’s worth of Bundesliga football for the Ruhr side, Tuesday’s match did just that. The game against Augsburg offered a microcosm of what has been a rather disappointing first half of the domestic campaign for Dortmund.
The greater issues that have kept head coach Thomas Tuchel busy over the first months of the season were all present against the Swabians, as the 43-year-old admitted in his post-match press conference: “Today’s match epitomises the first half of the season.”
It starts with a selection dilemma following the latest injury crisis. Without defensive leader Sokratis Papastathopoulos and starting right-back Lukasz Piszczek, Tuchel was again forced to change his back line.
Sven Bender only returned from a lengthy absence himself on the previous matchday and was thus not an option to start again, with Tuchel saying including him in the starting XI “would have been completely irresponsible.”
It left an inexperienced back three of Matthias Ginter, Marc Bartra and Mikel Merino, who made only his second start for Dortmund. Summer signing Bartra was tasked with being the middle man, usually the spot for the leader of the back line, who organises things and provides an anchor for the other centre-backs to hang on to when the going gets tough.
Unfortunately, the Catalan was overwhelmed by the responsibility and played arguably his worst match of the season. ESPN FC’s Stefan Buczko rated his performance at three out of 10, and one could argue that was generous. As the Dortmund-based writer noted, Bartra “cleared the ball almost as often to the opponent as he did to his own players.”
Tuchel realised he had asked too much of his 25-year-old signing from FC Barcelona after the match. “He is not used to the intensity of the training and the matches in the Bundesliga,” the Dortmund boss said. “It’s an adjustment process that takes time.”
“We need to acknowledge that he is not used to playing every three days and carrying absolute responsibility for the game,” he concluded.
The fact he brought on Bender for Bartra at half-time spoke volumes in itself, but the damage was already done. With one of his many nervy attempts to create some forward …
