2013-2014 Bundesliga Match Day 26: Hannover — HDI-Arena (Niedersachsenstadion (until 2002), AWD-Arena (2002-2013)) Kick Off: March 22, 2014 2:30 PM GMT (10:30 AM EDT) America is in daylight saving time early. Sorry not exactly sure what time kick-off is in Germany, time zones confuse me. Maybe someone can confirm. HANNOVER 96 v. BORUSSIA DORTMUND Still have some free time after that 1 ½ writeup in the CL thread, and didn’t want to start one right before the match yesterday, and haven’t seen much of @footyfan1 lately. Schmelzer is out for four weeks after the Zenit match, so this is the first match without him. I expect Durm to take his place. After the Zenit match hopefully the team can rally themselves and put us into some good form because the fixture list for the next three weeks looks like hell to me. Here’s a look at it. Hannover 96 (away), Schalke 04 (home), VfB Stuttgart (away), Real Madrid (away), Wolfsburg (home), Real Madrid (home), Bayern Munich (away), Wolfsburg (home, cup) Biggest break we have is 4 days, hopefully we’ll build momentum, or otherwise we could fall out of the top 4 because of the tough games. Don’t know where everyone gets the line-ups this early before the match maybe someone else could find projected line-ups. I’ll post the line ups before the match (if I don’t oversleep) and run commentary as always.
Weidenfeller, Durm, Hummels, Sokratis, Piszczek - Sahin, Kirch - Großkreutz, Mkhitaryan, Hofmann - Lewandowski Very nice, Kehl will get some rest, Hofmann will get some minutes. There will be positives even if we dont win.
And Reus finishes it 3-0 Schieber had a beauty cross for Reus, but Reus put it over from 6 yards a few minutes ago
I think the key to Madrid, at least based on this performance, is going to be Miki. His vision and passing were fantastic. At Madrid he'll have to deal with Modric and or Alonso to stop the distribution to the wings, run at the defence and create. Hummels will have to have a commanding presence and Reus has to be sharp but if Miki doesn't show up, we don't stand a chance.
BVB doesn't stand a chance when Miki plays badly. See our best games of the season so far, and those are the ones with Miki being on top of his game.
Wow, we actually played a decent game. Deserved win. Who knows if the game against Zenit wasnt a wake-up call for us just like for Bayern last season when they lost against Arsenal. Lets not jump into conclusions though, I hope we play a good game on Tuesday and get a very important win against Schalke.
Well, we can always count on Reus, Hummels or Sahin to make a good opening pass. But I agree Miki's form will be very important. If he shows up and plays like against Napoli then we will have a chance of going through. Should be a cracking tie this, today's game showed we still can play football. I hope we will build on that, win the derby, maybe win against Stuttgart and play Real with confidence.
But they havent played real madrid. It is a matchup with a different dynamic. Absolutely everything surrounding the occasion will also be different. Also, Real madrid will know that they were beaten in two rounds by this club last year. So i dont think an absolute works here at all.
Lewandowski was involved in 25 goals in 25 games this season. 16 goals for him now. I think he's been the player of the season so far.
And despite Reus' recent dip in form and absence he has still been involved either with an attempted shot on goal or assist every ten minutes this Bundesliga season.
I am so happy we brought him back this season. We got another year of great performances. We cannot replace him next year, but it is scary to think what our results this year would be while also trying to replace him.
Well think about it. Klopp will likely have Sahin drift out wide to support Durm against Bale or Ronaldo, fairly straight forward and something he was tasked to do against Hulk. Reus will be playing further forward on the left so he cant cut in and run at Pepe, something a lot of wide AMs do. KG will likely play in the right so he can drop deep to help Piczszek against Ronaldo or Bale, something he should be fairly used to. Kehl....well all he has to do is make sure he doesn't humiliate himself or the rest of the squad by not being run over in midfield; he isn't being asked to do something he never has. Sokratis has to play like Neven did last year, which is focus on just being a rock in the heart of defence because only Hummels will be allowed to venture forward so he can find Reus and whoever the striker is...an understanding both these centerbacks can and should develop over the next couple of weeks. So that just leaves Miki. He is more mobile than Alonso and even Modrid, almost as good defensively as Khedira. He will have to drop deep to help Kehl and form a compact midfield along with Sahin, make box to box runs because he is playing in the hole after all and he will have to pull defenders along with Reus when high up the pitch, a tactic he deployed to score a lot of goals when playing for Donetsk. Everybody knows he isn't as good as Gotze but he has a wider set of skills than him. He has more stamina, speed, defensive acumen...attributes Gotze lacks but managed to get away with at Dortmund because he had Sahin in his prime or Gundogan and Bender behind him. What happens if Miki doesn't show up? Well Kehl will get run over in midfield as it'll likely become 3 vs 1 or 3 vs 2 in that zone of the pitch. The striker (Auba, Duksch or even Reus) will become completely isolated. Sokratis and Hummels will sliced wide open. Sahin will likely drift back into the middle and give Ronaldo or Bale license to get into dangerous positions to score. And they will score...a lot. So my argument still stands. If Miki doesn't show up, we don't stand a chance.
Fully agree with what you're saying. But I think what we are all trying to get at here is that Miki has a wide range of attributes that would be very useful against a Madrid side that attacks down the flanks but can also be a threat down the middle. Furthermore, they are no longer a team afraid of playing against a team that presses in their 3rd of the pitch. Remember Marcelo likes to venture forward. Catch him on the break and you've created a great opportunity to counter attack and we need Reus and Miki to make those few chances count.
Miki will have a huge task of dropping deep to support CM's but once again the main task will fall to Lewandowski who will be asked to be creator, presser and goal outlet as well.