Waldemar Anton's consistency is impressive, and he showed the qualities Jürgen Klopp particularly values in BVB's win over Elversberg. Does a Bayern star now have to fear for his place in the Germany squad?
Three takeaways from Borussia Dortmund's 2:1 (0:0) win over SV Elversberg: Kovac's faith in Felix Nmecha pays off, while a much-discussed incident produces the word of the round on the ninth Bundesliga matchday.
Anton shows why Klopp is impressed: Is he moving ahead of a Bayern star?
Germany coach Jürgen Klopp's comments during the week about selecting the second squad of his still-young tenure offered a clue when he turned to his centre-backs. "Those two were clear choices for me," he said of how his squad had come together. He meant Waldemar Anton and Malick Thiaw, not Jonathan Tah and Nico Schlotterbeck, the duo most recently established in the Germany team.
Anton, the 30-year-old Borussia Dortmund defender, and Newcastle United's Thiaw, five years his junior, had formed the centre of Klopp's defence in both previous internationals, against Serbia (2:0) and in Greece (0:0). "They did an unbelievably good job, you simply have to say that," the Germany coach said, singling out Anton and Thiaw for praise. He then explained where they had excelled in areas central to his style of play.
"Centre-backs must, first and foremost, defend, of course. That is the most important part of their job. But to play a certain type of football, they also have to embrace that approach. In other words, if we want to press high but the lads only feel comfortable when they can touch the edge of their own penalty area, we have a problem," Klopp said. Anton and Thiaw, in other words, had shown they could defend as bravely as he wants.
Related Topics
Against Elversberg on Saturday afternoon, Anton provided another example. They sat deep for long stretches but kept looking to counter with their attacking quality. Anton has shown the same consistency for months, both over 180 minutes for Germany against Serbia and in Greece and in a BVB shirt.
BVB: Anton shows the qualities that particularly impress Klopp
Time and again, Anton stepped boldly out of the back four to stop potential counter-attacks by the Saarland side. His timing, anticipation and tackling stood out. As the last line of defence, he also made excellent decisions and produced numerous important blocks.
With the ball, Anton is just as willing to be bold. He repeatedly plays intelligent vertical passes that take numerous opponents out of the game and find team-mates in positions to drive the attack forward.
Getty ImagesBayern Munich's Tah has, of course, shown more than enough to prove that he, too, defends bravely and accepts a degree of risk. Still, Tah and Schlotterbeck are not certain to be Germany's established centre-back pairing at the finals in North America, as they were in the run-up to the World Cup and before the Dortmund player's injury.
Tah is no longer an undisputed starter for his club this season. Rival Min-Jae Kim has relegated him to the bench in one or two important matches recently. Anton also knows Schlotterbeck, his club team-mate and presumably a certain starter, better than the Munich player does. They are more accustomed to playing together. Dortmund's central defence could therefore become Germany's in Serbia on Friday.
BVB match-winner: Kovac's faith in Nmecha pays off
Felix Nmecha had to tread carefully against Elversberg's quick transitions after picking up a booking for a tactical foul just over 20 minutes in. Another such challenge could have put him at risk of a second yellow card.
On the way into the half-time break, Dortmund assistant coach Robert Kovac faced a question on Sky about whether the midfielder's booking made a substitution sensible. "I think he is intelligent enough to judge that," replied head coach Niko Kovac's brother, dismissing the suggestion.
That faith paid off after the break. In the 55th minute, Nmecha finished cleverly from around 18 metres after excellent build-up play by Fabio Silva, beating SVE goalkeeper Nicolas Kristof with a well-placed low shot into the near corner.
A quarter of an hour later, Nmecha made it 2:0 with another impressive finish, this time from slightly farther out (approximately 25 metres). The Germany international's two goals helped the second-placed side secure a win they had fully expected but had to fight hard for. Their 2:1 victory was enormously important in their contest at a distance with leaders Bayern Munich.
Felix Nmecha's importance to BVB: "He makes his team-mates better"
Kovac had trusted Nmecha to avoid another yellow card. At the post-match press conference, he highlighted what the midfielder brought to Dortmund beyond his two goals. "With his presence, his dynamism, his technique," the 26-year-old was immensely important to BVB, the Croatian explained. "He can resolve so many situations so quickly with the way he turns his body. That makes his team-mates better."
Only now entering the prime of his footballing career, or what Kovac calls his "peak-performance age", Saturday afternoon's two-goal scorer still has "room for improvement". Borussia felt Nmecha's absence during the five league games he missed through injury last season. "You could see then that our play was a little sluggish," Kovac recalled. "With him, we have a completely different dimension. That's why I'm glad he's here."
Getty ImagesDespite occasional dips in form this season and spells when he has looked a little tired, Nmecha has become too influential for Kovac to do without. "In terms of talent and technique, he is one of the best midfielders in the world," Dortmund sporting director Ole Book said in praise of him after the win over Elversberg on Sky. "If he adds finishing like he did today – he certainly has the shot for it – then there aren't many who are better."
BVB goalkeeper Gregor Kobel wanted a small share of the credit for Nmecha's second goal, struck at 124 km/h. "That's Felix, what can you say? A world-class player," the Swiss goalkeeper said in an interview with Borussia's YouTube channel, adding with a grin: "Maybe he puts the balls away like that because I always challenge him so much in training."
The word of the matchday: "point of contact"
Elversberg captain Lukas Pinckert injured his ankle in one of the ninth Bundesliga matchday's most-discussed incidents. He had to come off early in the match at Borussia Dortmund (37th minute).
Referee Harm Osmers was right not to show Dortmund's Daniel Svensson a red card. The Swede caught Pinckert fully on the ankle with his studs showing, so the so-called "point of contact" argued for a red under the rules. But since VAR's introduction, treating that point as decisive has failed to do justice to the dynamics of incidents like this. Svensson showed not the slightest sign of malicious intent.
Had Pinckert been carrying the ball, played a pass and then been caught in the same way by Svensson sliding in after the ball was long gone, it would of course have been a red card. This incident unfolded differently. Svensson slid in with his left foot to reach a pass from Carney Chukwuemeka and direct it into the middle of the penalty area. Crucially, the BVB left-back had every chance of reaching the ball.
Pinckert darted in between and poked the ball away. Within hundredths of a second, Svensson caught him instead as he tried to reach it. The Swede could no longer pull out, and Pinckert's injury was deeply unfortunate. But what could Svensson have done? Without intent, and given how the incident unfolded, a yellow card would have been understandable. A red would not.
Getty ImagesWatch the incident repeatedly on a screen, particularly in slow motion, and the contact with Pinckert's ankle looks like a red card in isolation. Judging a potential sending-off by its "point of contact" while ignoring how the incident unfolded cannot be in football's interests.
World Cup winner Mats Hummels made the same argument in January when Svensson was shown a red card for a similar challenge in Dortmund's Champions League match at Tottenham Hotspur. "It's unfortunate, but that's how it's being refereed at the moment. For me, it isn't a red card. It's a classic freeze-frame red card that, when you look at how the incident developed, doesn't justify a sending-off," Hummels said at the time as a TV pundit on Prime Video.
Saturday's challenge prompted a heated debate in the Sky studio between two other former professionals. "Svensson doesn't see Pinckert at all. He misses the ball by two centimetres; he wants to play the ball. He doesn't see his opponent or anything else, he just wants to play the ball […] It's a coming together; these are things that happen in football," said Dietmar Hamann, who thought Osmers was right not to show a red card. Patrick Helmes disagreed.
"The point of contact couldn't be clearer, and the risk of injury couldn't be greater. I agree with you that he didn't mean to do it, Didi. But there were lots of things I didn't mean to do either, and I still got them wrong," said former Germany striker Helmes. Former Germany player Hamann replied: "You've disqualified yourself by using the words 'point of contact'."
Afterwards, Osmers told Sky that, having seen the footage and following the current rules, he could certainly have given a red card. He might have done so had VAR intervened and sent him to the monitor. Patrick Hanslbauer stayed silent in the Cologne VAR room. That was good for football.