Dortmund Players Critical About Previous Performances and Injury Recoveries

After the rather poor performances in the Bundesliga and, yet, great support by the fans from Borussia Dortmund, several players offered an insight on how they feel concerning their games of the past weeks. Aubameyang has told Bundesliga.de that concentration indeed is a problem: "We were'nt wide awake either time and I don't think we are concentrating enough and that's something we must improve on if we don't want to put our aims in jeopardy. We certainly can't be happy with the way things have gone so far in the Bundesliga. A club like Borussia Dortmund doesn't have the right to hide behind excuses." Furthermore Aubameyang talks about his improvements and difficulties that he has had during his first season in Dortmund: " Tactically, I wasn't able to do what he wanted last season perfectly because I didn't understand the language and because it was a new world to me." (www.bundesliga.com/en/liga/news/2014/0000303794.php)

Whilst Joachim Löw nominated most of the World Cup Champions for the forthcoming international matches again, Kevin Großkreutz did not appear on that list. On the homepage of the DFB Löw now points out the reasons for not doing so: " I've talked to Jürgen Klopp. And we soon agreed that it makes more sense for him to use the international break to train individually, and get back into gear in the club again. When he returns to us, Die Nationalmannschaft will profit from it." This sounds like an explanation that is trying to silence the ongoing rumours that Löw dropped Großkreutz due to his activities off the pitch. Marcel Reif, commentator of the game against Hamburg underlined these speculations by saying "Why am I not surprised that Grokreutz has joined in?" after an argument with referee Zwayer. (www.dfb.de/news/detail/loew-auch-bei-der-em-soll-der-titel-wieder-ueber-uns-gehen-107342/ )

Germany goal keeping coach Andreas Köpke stepped up for Roman Weidenfeller, telling Kicker that he has every chance to make it to the 2016 European Championship in France. He further pointed out the spirit Weidenfeller had brought into the team during the World Cup in Brazil. His words followed an article of Der Westen which had suggested that keeping Weidenfeller on the team would be a wrong decision. According to Der Westen Weidenfeller only made it to the World Cup because of all the lobby work for him. This might have been okay back then" but there are many young, hungry and super strong keepers out there, who would have deserved a different signal". (www.derwesten.de/sport/fussball/bvb/weidenfeller-bleibt-im-dfb-team-eine-falsche-entscheidung-id9905276.html )

Good new on the injury front, where Oliver Kirch has been seen practicing with the ball out in Brackel again. Kirch was absolutely delighted, emphasizing this on Facebook: "Nice to mee you, ball! Long time no see!" ( www.facebook.com/oliver.kirch.official/photos )

Ida, 07.10.2014