Even a marathon man like Jude Bellingham eventually walks on his gums. “I’ll spend a few days on the massage bench,” said the English hyper-driver from Borussia Dortmund a week ago – after that, the long-running favorite also became the match winner of a very intense league game at Eintracht Frankfurt.
Now, however, the time for rotation has finally come in the constant three-day rhythm before the World Cup: In the sportingly meaningless group finals of the Champions League at FC Copenhagen on Wednesday (9 p.m. / DAZN), some BVB stars will get the break they want have fought hard for themselves in the hamster wheel.
“We got ourselves into the fortunate situation that we didn’t have the pressure against Copenhagen to make the game a success,” said sports director Sebastian Kehl to the newspapers of the “Funke Mediengruppe”. In all seriousness, it will be “the opportunity to make small changes in view of the next games”.
That was still a reasonably defensive announcement: coach Edin Terzic would be negligent if he missed this opportunity.
Julian Brandt or Youssoufa Moukoko will probably also slip out of the starting XI. A comeback by Dortmund captain Marco Reus (ankle injury) in this game would also be pointless in view of the upcoming tasks: Before the start of the World Cup on November 20th, there are still three Bundesliga match days in another English week.
BVB wants to tackle the game with “all consistency and concentration”.
Sebastian Kehl’s warning about professionalism in the fight for the 2.8 million euro prize money isn’t too harsh either: “It’s the Champions League, it’s both sportingly and economically important to tackle this game with all consistency and concentration.”
The sports director continued, “we owe this to ourselves and to the fans traveling with us”. But the organized fan scene won’t be there at all, they save themselves the trip to the famous Little Mermaid on the waterfront and the visit to the colorful free town of Christiania – in protest against the club’s measures after the riots in the first leg.
BVB ultras are angry about their own club
“Nobody has obliged BVB to only sell tickets to club members. This means that numerous Borussia players are being deprived of the opportunity to support the team in Denmark without need and in anticipatory obedience,” said the Ultras from “The Unity” and the “Desperados”. With.
Regardless of the outcome of the game, BVB will finish their group second behind Manchester City. FC Copenhagen has already been confirmed as bottom of the group and will be eliminated from the European Cup. The ultimate goal is not to become the fourth team in Champions League history without a goal: Deportivo La Coruna (2004/05), Maccabi Haifa (2009/10) and Dinamo Zagreb (2016/17) have been in this inglorious series so far.