Saturday, 26.04.2025
After a recent loss to Hamburg, Tuchel’s Borussia Dortmund again fell short this time in a Europa League clash away in Russia to Krasnodar. Despite having multiple chances and hitting the woodwork on three occasions, the German side ultimately couldn’t reply to their opposition’s early goal which came from a penalty in the first minute.
As Tuchel looked to rest a few of the key players in the Dortmund squad, he made an interesting and ultimately ineffective adaption of their possession game which led to a weak first half showing.
After the absurdity that was Dortmund’s first leg against the Norweigan Odd BK, Tuchel’s side had a more straight-forward 90 minutes in the return fixture.
Following an eventful first half one would’ve been forgiven for thinking that we were still in the 2014/2015 season.
Especially whilst Schurrle was on the pitch, rotations between the ‘3’ of Wolfsburg’s 4-2-3-1 were common. The most frequent rotation in this aspect was between Kevin De Bruyne and Andre Schurrle which happened commonly when the Wolves had possession.
Villarreal and Red Bull Salzburg are two of the few European teams that are leading the resurgence of the 4-4-2 after the formation became very rarely used in top-level teams in the late 2000’s/early 2010’s.
Liverpool proved the victor over a defensive Besiktas team which offered little in attack. Neither team excelled on the night but Liverpool were the superior team and controlled, yet they at times were found reliant on Ibe who, thankfully for Rodgers, excelled.
Spurs hosted Internazionale, the perhaps most interesting game of the Europa League round of sixteen.