Nobody is going to really care if Dortmund came 2nd or 3rd. Next year the target is to win the league. Win the cup, have a narrow loss to say Madrid in the semi-final, and come 3rd in the league. Next season everyone will be talking about Dortmund as one of the top 5 clubs in the world. Reus, Auba and Sokratis will believe they can fulfill their ambitions. The young players like Dembele, Pulisic, Raphael, Weigl, Durm and possibly Mor/Passlack get real big game experience. Out of our young players only Weigl and Passlack have that winning mentality and even they lack experience. Winning trophies breeds winning more trophies. I stress again it's not that I am giving up on coming 2nd, I just think winning the cup and progressing far in the CL, is much more important.
Cup success is important but coming third would be a massive blow for a club that's touted as the 2nd best in Germany. 6 points is definitely a gap that we can overcome.
Or those who have been very critical of Tuchel - there have been some good articles written on his formation/tactics over the last few games. He's adapted to an ever more asymmetrical formation - using Durm and Castro to occupy defenders and midfielders, thereby creating a lot of room for RG, Reus, and Demebele. Dembele has also been rotated more centrally.... Effects of BVB's diagonal build-up vs. Bayer's shifted pressing. Taken from private discussion. Diagonal-space-structuring is powerful! pic.twitter.com/qI3mGoT2Xt— Adin Osmanbašić (@AdinOsmanbasic) March 5, 2017
That formation is not that asymmetrical. In reality every formation is asymmetrical. Perhaps those that supported Tuchel should be questioning why our great run has come when Tuchel has done the following. 1. Kept a regular formation. 2. Picked the same players. 3. Played players in their correct positions 3a. Raphael moved to left 3b Castro in midfield and not Kagawa/Gotze 3c Stopped played useless attacking wingbacks like Pisczcek and Schmelzer 4. Reus as captain (in effect) because the other players respect and look up to him I personally have no complaint with the formation now that Gotze is out indefinitely and there is no need for a 10. A 3-4-3 is an excellent choice, because Castro does little defensively. Should the team add Dahoud then instead of Weigl fighting by himself he will have a partner.
Third would not be a massive blow. It's subpar, but not a massive blow. I agree with @eaglespark, the focus should be on tournament play.
Yes - but not every formation attempts to specifically us that overload the way tuchel has. Thats like saying every formation has CB's.... sure they do.... but it's how they are utilized. I like the fact that he's using Castro to occupy the midfielder (which doesn't expose his weaknesses), but then that frees up RG to use the space. No argument here.... agree on most points. Keep in mind it's not even that we are without a 10.... it's the dynamic use of Durm/Demebele. Look at the avg positions based on this pass map.
As long as we end up top 3 and have direct CL-qualification I don't really mind whether we end up 2nd or 3rd. We have lots of young players who aren't fully matured yet and we have some deadweight in the squad. On paper we are the 2nd best squad in Germany but real performances don't always reflect what's on paper.
Tuchel definitely likes to overload the left hand side, but it's also down to our left hand side being much stronger offensively. Reus is still better than Dembele, whilst Bartra/Raphael are significantly better than LP/Durm. There's nothing special where Dembele is playing. That's what I would expect given we attack better down the left. The only slightly strange thing in the formation is how advanced Durm is. Durm is a bit more advanced than you would expect. Here's a look at Chelsea's maps. 799741893663830016 is not a valid tweet id The only difference is just how attacking Durm is. Here's Tottenham's average position from the weekend. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39175521