After eight defeats in a row, BVB was finally able to take something countable with them in the duel with FC Bayern and turn a 0:2 deficit into a 2:2. Edin Terzic was particularly pleased with the mentality of his team – a notoriously sensitive issue in Dortmund.
Since Jürgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel left BVB, there has been almost no month in which the Black and Yellows have not been asked the question of mentality. This season, the Dortmund team once again had to be accused of a number of things – especially with regard to the defeats against Werder Bremen (2: 3), RB Leipzig (0: 3) and most recently 1. FC Köln (2: 3).
But just like against Manchester City and Sevilla, Edin Terzic’s team showed against FC Bayern that they can do things differently. Despite an unfortunate 2-0 deficit, BVB didn’t give up and scored the much-acclaimed equalizer in the closing stages, which broke all the dams in Signal-Iduna-Park. Stealing victory from your big rival at the last second tastes particularly good.
That’s not the only reason why Edin Terzic was extremely satisfied with his team’s performance after the final whistle.
“It was a very intense game,” reported the BVB coach. “Especially in the first half we defended it very well. We kept closing the center well so they didn’t get between our lines. The ball was always in front of us – that was a point we really wanted to keep , also in the second half”, says Terzic about the match plan.
“You [journalists] know the quality of Bayern. You know how many chances they usually have in a game. We managed in the first half to concede just that one shot on goal. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough To defend zero, but it then led to a goal,” explained Terzic and added: “Then it’s not so easy to maintain discipline.”
The 39-year-old emphasized that his team had to deal with the emotions of the game – also because a certain “risk-taking” was transferred to the team from the stands. Nevertheless, as Terzic made clear, they didn’t want to open too early and run into Bayern Munich’s open knife.
If you don’t let the emotions, if you don’t let the willingness to take risks that is transferred from the stands to the team, overflow the spaces.
“The issue during the half-time break was that we had to maintain discipline for the next 15, 20 minutes, that we had to keep the space tight and that we couldn’t get too wild,” Terzic revealed his speech from the dressing room. It was agreed “that at some point we’ll give the signal from the outside through substitutions that we want to make it wilder again”. The 39-year-old should have meant in particular the substitutions of Karim Adeyemi and Anthony Modeste, who were able to bring new momentum into the game.
“That worked very well today,” said a happy Terzic. “It got wild at the end, it went both ways.
The head coach was particularly pleased that his team didn’t give up against their big rivals: “What was very positive and very good was that we had a huge chance [through Modeste] to equalize in the 82nd minute, which unfortunately we couldn’t convert , and still believed up to the last second that something was still possible here. I think it was a very deserved point in the end because we were able to create a lot of chances,” said Terzic.
“When you’re 2-0 down against Bayern, games usually end 4-0 or 5-0,” he said. “That didn’t happen today and we were able to put a small exclamation mark behind the mentality question for today. That was good today.”
Next weekend the black and yellow are going to the Alte Försterei zu Union Berlin – a hot place where it would be a good time to make the next small exclamation point in the mentality debate.
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This article was originally published on 90min.com/de as Terzic proud after catching up: “Small exclamation mark behind the mentality question!” released.
