With this match plan, BVB can beat Bayern
Oct 17, 2025 9:24 pm | 2:43m
Ex-national player Steffen Freund explains to us in an exclusive interview why BVB doesn’t have to have a chance in the top game against FC Bayern. He also reveals why the Munich team should look for Nico Schlotterbeck and extend the contract with Dayot Upamecano.
Collapse video transcript
Expand video transcript
With Niko Kovac you have a coach who is of course also able to orient the offensive game a little more defensively, to achieve the balance a little more defensively against Bayern, because of course at home in the form they are in, you first have to defend well and Niko can do that. He can adjust the team to be more offensive and defensive and also manages to select the positional play of the individual players. As an example, Kyoto or RIAS of tomorrow. That doesn’t mean that he can sometimes press Borussia Dortmund high. That doesn’t mean that there are phases where Borussia Dortmund wins the ball earlier. Maybe you can last for five or six minutes because you simply push the opponent into your own half. Because Bayern do it exactly the other way around. That is the great danger. If you only play defensively, then Bayern are all in the opponent’s half or in Dortmund’s half and then of course they do it through great counter-pressing. And Vincent Kompany did that really well. They are now much stronger against the ball than they were under Thomas Tuchel, for example.
Because FC Bayern of course needs at least four good central defenders. And that’s why it’s of course logical that they are interested in one of the best German central defenders. And then it’s Dortmund again. That was already the case in my time. It’s always nice when you get someone else out of there.
You definitely have to stop at Upamecano. Now we are faced with them losing too. And they are now playing against Dortmund. Already with some players in quotes who were actually only second choice or play a different position like Leimer or Boye.
Immediately after the St.Pauli game in the 95, 96 or 94 95 season, I went straight from the St.Pauli game to the plane that Uli Hoeneß had chartered for me and then flew to Munich after the Bundesliga game with Dortmund. That was pretty cool. Then we’ll be flown in briefly by Bayern. Hello everyone, get to know Franz Beckenbauer, Karlheinz Rummenigge, Uli Hoeneß personally and then hear that you’re actually not bad at all, we want you. Well, that’s it, it gives you goosebumps. But, as is now the case with Borussia Dortmund, I was in a situation where you were able to stand up to Bayern. Or we were even better. And in the year that Bayern didn’t want to, we became champions and Bayern only came second again.