Bitter: Niko Kovac announces season-ending injury for key BVB player | OneFootball

Two games left. Then the 2025/26 season will be history for Borussia Dortmund. On Friday (May 8, 8:30 p.m.), the gates of Signal Iduna Park will open for the last time this season for the match against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Things have not gone as hoped for the black-and-yellow pros in recent matches. After an almost flawless record of just two defeats in the first 28 matchdays — fittingly both against league leaders Bayern Munich — BVB have recently fallen apart. In their last four games, Dortmund suffered three more defeats against Leverkusen, Hoffenheim, and most recently Gladbach.

Most recently, Borussia slumped to a 1–0 defeat in Mönchengladbach. Speaking at Wednesday’s press conference ahead of the Frankfurt game, Niko Kovac (54) criticized his team’s lack of mentality. The BVB coach is missing the absolute determination and passion to win every duel. “We didn’t understand how to stand our ground there the way you have to in a Bundesliga match,” he said bluntly. The head coach particularly complained that his team repeatedly came off second best in the battle for second balls and lacked the necessary bite.

Whether the recently sidelined Karim Adeyemi (24), Niklas Süle (30), and Felix Nmecha (25) will return against the team from Hesse is still unclear. Adeyemi probably has the best chance of returning to the matchday squad.

Tension in Frankfurt

But Kovac also had some bad news to deliver. Ramy Bensebaini (31) will definitely miss the Frankfurt game. The BVB coach also fears the defender is unlikely to be fit for the match at Werder Bremen (May 16, 3:30 p.m.).

Kovac still has a special connection to the next opponent. In the 2017/18 season, he won the DFB-Pokal with the Eagles. Despite the unrest surrounding his colleague Albert Riera (44), the 54-year-old knows from personal experience that “expectations are very high” in Frankfurt. But that does not concern him, because: “We’re focusing on ourselves.”

Photo: IMAGO

Kovac remained tight-lipped about possible arrivals or departures. “It makes no sense to comment on every name,” he said briefly and bluntly. It has long since been clear, however, that Julian Brandt (30) will leave the club. But the football coach did not want to reveal whether he will play the long-serving Dortmund man in his final appearance in front of the home crowd. “If I were to say something now, then everyone would know too,” he explained meaningfully.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.