bvb awarded a penalty on what in real time looked like a high speed albeit fair challenge which gets knocked down to free kick and yellow and dortmund almost scores anyways
Would someone mind providing a quick synopsis of the Gio Reyna bio to this point. Other than he's son of Claudio, I confess that his ascension to Bundisliga bench has completely bypassed my limited youth phenom-ar. Professional soccer is fast becoming no country for grown men.
dortmund look deadset on losing a lot of 4-3 games to clubs higher in the table than them. this could easily be 2-2
Imagine Gio having both Haaland and Moukoko in front of him to pass to. Damn. ...... Then he wakes up from the dream and returns to the national team
I'm not satisfied w/ the usage by Favre. Up multiple goals the entire 2nd half, 3 from the 77th. Why not sub in Reyna instead of Dahoud and use all 3 subs much earlier at home against Koln. Just kind of wasted day from Reyna's/BVB developmental player perspective. They could have served both purposes. Instead awarded him a token appearance. It's cap #2 on his record. That's all.
Zlatan is a good analog for Haaland, and we could realistically be watching a young man who is on his way to being the best striker ever. What he's accomplishing across levels for clubs and country at his age is insane, while he's toolsy + poised as heck.
Köln has been in decent form and BVB defense has been known to blow leads. In a tight race for CL spots, Favre probably wanted to ensure the victory over all else. Gio will get his time.
What's odd is, he came on last week on the road when they were up one. And it worked. Extremes in terms of conservatism and risk-taking.
Of note today: Reyna subbed in for Sancho this time, instead of the other way around. Haaland with a bit of a drop off in production.
It does seem it should've been the opposite. But, at 17 he's still the preferred youngster to Ballerdi and Morey, which is a great sign.
Not meaningless time IMO. He looked like he was having a blast with his team mates on the field in the post game celebration. Pretty cool stuff I imagine for a 17 year old. BVB have too many quality attacking players. Good problem to have I guess. Just need a few more quality defenders.
Just saw the second half. Dortmund is much more pleasing on the eye with Hummels back organizing the 3 man back line and Brandt doing really good work in the middle third. They already had a great winger in Sancho and now they have a good cf in Haaland. That's quite a spine. My feeling is that if Reyna gets better and fills out a little - he's just turned 17 !! in November - he could sub in for Reuss who really needs to be protected from late game injuries when the game is all but over anyway (like today when he went flying over the touch line from a block very late in the game. That looked like it hurt.) Either that or Reyna takes the Brandt position as a sub. Brandt is another one who needs a little protection. He seems indispensable imo.
Seems closer to Lewa than Zlatan for me as he doesn't have Zlatan's flash but regardless he looks like the best next thing in the game.