Borussia Dortmund’s U23s took on SV Wacker Burghausen at the Wacker-Arena in the first friendly of their training camp. Following some initial difficulties, coach Christian Preußer’s side played on the front foot and claimed a deserved 2-1 victory thanks to a significantly improved second-half performance.
SV Wacker, formerly of the second and third tier, have been plying their trade in the Regionalliga Bayern for several years and used today’s game against BVB as their season opener. The several hundred fans present witnessed a lively game in which the home side created their first opportunity after a matter of seconds, though Marcel Lotka in the Dortmund goal kept it out. He was forced to pick the ball out the back of the net after eight minutes, however: Bachschmid pounced upon a moment of carelessness in the BVB back four to make it 1-0 to the hosts. Finnson had a go at goal on the 17-minute mark, but the Burghausen custodian was able to punch his strike clear. The next chance fell to captain Pfanne, who fired narrowly wide of the target seven minutes later. BVB had more of the game in the period that followed, however Wacker’s counter-pressing and consistent defensive work proved successful and dented the Black & Yellows’ attacking efforts. Borussia also had work to do defensively, with Wacker repeatedly getting into dangerous positions in their half. The half-time whistle sounded with Burghausen in a deserved 1-0 lead.
Preußer brought on four new players – Dams, Hober, Bennetts and Elongo-Yombo replaced Pudel, Pfanne, Bueno and Pohlmann – at half-time. BVB looked more dangerous after the restart. Bennetts broke through nicely in the penalty area, only for his shot to miss the corner narrowly. The breakthrough came a short while later, however, with Bornemann rounding off some nice work by Elongo-Yombo to level the scores at 1-1. Sensing an opportunity to take the lead, BVB grew more dominant and dangerous. Eberwein narrowly missed the target with a lob that landed on the roof of the net only minutes after the equaliser. By this point, Preußer had already introduced five new faces: Adam Oudja, Ted Tattermusch, Kristian Bako, Aday Ercan and Albin Thaqi. BVB had a big chance in the 71st minute: Oudjani played a lovely through-ball that put Bennetts in behind, but he put the ball just over the Black & Whites’ goal. A few minutes later, Hober chipped the ball towards the edge of the box and another substitute, U19 player Vasco Walz, brought it down out of the sky before beating the goalkeeper and slotting home to put BVB in a 2-1 lead. Borussia by now had their hosts firmly on the back foot and no further dangerous attacks were forthcoming from the former second-tier team.
Coach Christian Preußer appeared content after the final whistle: “I’m happy that we won the game. We had to fight hard and get stuck into the challenges against a really mature team. But then we got the game under good control, scored some great goals and deserved to win. It was hard work and you could see that the past few days in the training camp have used up a lot of energy and that the lads were tired.”
Source: BVB
