As I sat in Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund, to watch Dortmund host, outplay and over-run Arsenal in a flattering 2-0 Champions League encounter, I could not help but wonder, how long will it take before this Dortmund team will self-destruct?
This might seem strange to you if you have never been fortunate enough to watch them play live.
Bvb Dortmund is definitely one of the most entertaining teams to watch in the world. When they play there is passion, speed, pressing football all over the pitch and they practically try to stifle oxygen out of the lungs of the opponent.
They are quite successful with this and came close to winning the Uefa Champions League two years ago.
Coached by a temperamental and positively motivating figure in the person of Jürgen Klopp, Dortmund has grown from a team that were facing bankruptcy and near extinction in mid-2005 to a better, financially stable team capable of winning major titles.
However, as we share thoughts, they are languishing in 14th position on the Bundesliga table, after eight league games, with 13 points behind league leaders Bayern Munich, and are just two points away from the relegation spot.
This is due to several reasons. When they took on Arsenal just less than a month ago, they fielded just five regular starters and the rest were reserve players, who normally used to be on the bench. That is what major injuries to star players have constrained them to.
In the Bundesliga, Dortmund has the highest number of injured players and this has always been the case in recent years. Though this season they are struggling and marching on in spite of this.
One could argue that the season is still quite young, with still 26 games and 78 points to fight for. You could reason that after a World Cup year (Dortmund had some players in the German World Cup-winning team) this was to be expected but the real reason hangs on their success formula.
This weekend they lost 2-1 to newly promoted and 11th-placed FC Koln, who, prior to this game, had won just one game!Dortmund's Playing Style!
The physical demands of the Dortmund playing style could seem inhuman at times. Mainz's Coach, who beat Dortmund just three days after they outran Arsenal, felt he had to check his TV's remote to see if the TV was not on fast forward mode, as he felt the Dortmund players were running unbelievably fast.
This explains why, from the onset, to accommodate Jürgen Klopp's successful playing philosophy of ultra physical body investment, he recruits mostly athletic and talented young players into his fold.
When Dortmund recovers the ball from the opponent in its own half, the forward runs in front of the player in possession often break down the opposition. This same pace is applied if that particular ball is lost in recovering up to crowd the midfield.
The human body has a limit and I feel in football there just has to be a recovery phase during a game and that's one of the major reasons why Germany won the Fifa World cup in Brazil; because they were able to dictate the pace of the game at most times by their high ball possession, and accelerate when they wanted to, without burning the edges.
Bayern Munich has the most German national team players in their fold and they do have fewer injuries and are sitting top of the league with Pep Guardiola pulling the strings.
Don’t forget that Dortmund also play in the Champions League, further reducing the recovery periods available to them to replenish lost energy.
At the moment, the burden on the physical aspect of the players is killing them and, if not solved, could see Dortmund struggle like never before under the recent but successful Jürgen Klopp era.
