BVB: Kovac announcement before the Bundesliga summit against FC Bayern

Duel with ex-employer

Opportunity and danger at the same time: The Bundesliga summit between FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund is finally full of excitement again. For the league – but also for the resurgent BVB, who absolutely want to prevent Super Bayern from gaining early league dominance. “We know how important the game is, but we are concentrating fully on ourselves,” said former Bayern and current BVB coach Niko Kovac before the top duel on Saturday.

If Bayern also win their seventh league game, the record champions with no loss points would already be a whopping seven points ahead of BVB. On the other hand, BVB sees the chance to get within one point and keep the league exciting. “Bayern are the favorites, no one can deny that, but we are the underdogs who want to hurt the opponent in some way,” said Kovac and chose an interesting image to illustrate Dortmund’s approach: “We have to be like a fist. A fist hurts more than a bell.”

Under the 54-year-old since Wednesday, BVB is back on track. It will be seen on Saturday whether Dortmund are on an equal footing with Bayern again. “They certainly won’t underestimate us,” said Kovac, given the upswing under him.

BVB: Initial skepticism, quick satisfaction – Kovac arrives

The Westphalians arrive four points behind the confident Munich team. After the preseason, which was completely messed up for a long time and ultimately saved by Kovac, Dortmund was a whopping 25 points behind the champions from Munich. This season, what had already been introduced continues seamlessly: Under Kovac, Dortmund score more points, concede fewer goals, but score more themselves.

With the Croatian, Dortmund won 65 percent of all league games and scored an average of 2.1 points per game – no BVB coach has a better record. The initial skepticism in Dortmund towards Kovac has given way to general satisfaction. “You just have to say: Niko delivers,” said sports director Lars Ricken in “Sport Bild”. The BVB bosses are very grateful that Kovac, after taking over the district giants nine months ago, took them from eleventh place in the table to fourth place and thus once again led them to the Champions League’s money pot. So big that the contract was extended early until 2027.

BVB coach Kovac changed: No comparison with the former Bayern version

And Kovac doesn’t just work on his players. Even outside of it, the ex-professional has little in common with the image he gave during his time as Bayern coach between summer 2018 and November 2019, despite winning three titles. At that time, Kovac seemed irritated and sometimes made unfortunate statements, for example about the then noble reservist Thomas Müller. Since then, Kovac has changed.

“You try to improve as a person. As a coach you have certainly developed further,” said Kovac himself. Always confident even when dealing with critical questions and with a friendly demeanor, he quickly gained a lot of sympathy in Dortmund. Observers who initially placed bets on which star Kovac would shave first at BVB were quickly disappointed.

In fact, Kovac puts himself in front of each of his players, most noticeably for a long time in front of the polarizing Julian Brandt, who was in a crisis of form for a long time. Kovac, who used to seem so strict, patiently takes alleged problem cases into account until they work or get better. Marcel Sabitzer, Karim Adeyemi and Yan Couto are the best examples of this.

One of the biggest Kovac fans in Dortmund is the outgoing managing director Hans-Joachim Watzke. The 66-year-old is enjoying being able to travel to Munich for the last time as the boss of a real top club. “It’s a special game for me, I don’t want to beat around it,” Watzke told the “Ruhr Nachrichten”: “And I wouldn’t like to lose it.”