“Stress test passed!”: what sets BVB apart this season | OneFootball

World Cup winner Lothar Matthäus saw “a mature performance” from Dortmund, who took the field in black and yellow, “defended compactly, shut everything down in the second half, were superbly organized, and took their chance.” And BVB managing director Lars Ricken breathed a deep sigh of relief after the win on the Neckar: “Stress test passed! Last season we were sitting here in the dressing room after a 2-0 win and didn’t really know why. Today we do. I saw a team that fought back, and not just in terms of effort.” What impressed Ricken was not only “the way they saw the win out, but also how bravely they defended on the front foot, especially in the first half when they also tried to dominate with the ball.”

The former professional and Dortmund native is thrilled with the work Niko Kovac has been doing since March 2025: “Under Niko, we’ve developed a certain resilience. The team really takes great pride in defending its own goal.” They ran two kilometers more than their opponents (120.5 kilometers) and also made their mark in attack. After an intense 90 minutes, the shot count stood at 13:11, giving the winners a slight edge.

“We had a lot of control in the first half, then in the second it was a bit the other way around,” said Niko Kovac: “VfB had a bit more of the ball, though I have to say: over 90 minutes, we hardly allowed anything at all.” For the third time in the first four league matches of the young season, they kept a clean sheet. “What those three clear away is really extremely impressive,” Ricken said of the back three of Joane Gadou, Waldemar Anton, and Nico Schlotterbeck. “You can’t tell at all that he was out for months with his injury,” Ricken said of Schlotterbeck.

Borussia Dortmund is the only team to have won away at such a strong home side as VfB Stuttgart in 2026. And they have done it twice, in April and now again in September. “When you win away in Stuttgart against a really very strong team, that sends a message,” Niko Kovac said after his 52nd league match as BVB coach. His record stands at 35 wins, eight draws, and nine defeats. With an average of 2.17 points per game, Kovac ranks ahead of Thomas Tuchel (2.09), Lucien Favre (2.08), Marco Rose (2.03), Jürgen Klopp (1.91), and Ottmar Hitzfeld (1.86) in the club’s standings.

And so Lars Ricken can also head into the 20-day international break satisfied. “It’s nice that so far we’ve won every game in every competition – the Bundesliga, the DFB Cup, the Champions League. We said we wanted to be a real force.”

In 20 days, things resume. On October 9, the Black and Yellows will open a run of 09 matches in just 30 days with a home game against Werder Bremen. BVB will approach it knowing what has made them strong.Boris Rupert

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