Loading ...Sep 03 2008
Germany: Dortmund’s Strong Start Continues With Win Over Cottbus
Energie Cottbus is not going to be confused with a contender, but winning on the roas can never be taken for granted. For a club that finished as low as Borussia Dortmund did in last year’s Bundesliga, any points are to be cherished, so a 1-0 win at Cottbus should not be sneezed at. Dortmund controlled the entire match, and while there was one crowd-gasping moment in the last ten minutes when Cottbuss threatened after Dortmund bunkered in, Dortmund held on, build on last week’s point they got from Bayern, and showed why they should be considered amongst the league’s top six or seven teams.
With the victory, Dortmund remains one of the league’s three teams without a loss, sitting with Schalke 04 and Hamburger SV atop the table with 7 points. They’ve accumulated their record while having already played Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich one time each. When they come back from break, they will be further tested with a match-up against Schalke 04.
Borussia Dortmund got their one goal off a header from Neven Subotic, who helped redeem a sub-par performance last week, where he was responsible for TIm Borowski’s tying goal. Subotic took a head pass, played down from a Dortmund corner, and pocketted the only goal of the match just before halftime.
Bookmarking that goal was the continuing acclimation process of Mohamed Zidan to Nelson Valdez. Zidan has only been with the club for two weeks, and you can see how he and Valdez do not quite know where the other is going to be. Because of this, Zidan’s contributions were somewhat muted, though Nelson was not short of chances. Cottbus goaltender Gerhard Tremmel made a couple of nice saves on Florian Kringe shots to his right post, but Dortmund neevr really threatened despite spending much of their time on the attack. Valdez seemed to spend the whole match one touch away from a great chance.
Kringe was not the only player from Dortmund’s midfield to turn in a good performance. They entire level helped control the match, with Tamas Hajnel (in particular) also producing a good chance on net. Kuba was not remarkable, but he did at times show a quality that Cottbus clearly could not counter.
All of this is a long winded saying that Dortmund was better, their superior talent was evident, and the win was deserved. In that sense, it the match was nothing but a reminded to Cottbus, who have only one point in three matches and should expect a fight to stay up. Those teams they will be competing with for taht distinction would have faired no better against Dortmund, though some of them (like, say, 1. FC Koln) have been able to get four points. They’ve dug themselves a slight hole, and they will need to find some new quality in attack in order to start taking some points. This weekend, their attack was non-existent.
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