On Saturday evening, Kovac and his team will face one of the toughest home grounds in German football, when the team travels to the inner city of Hamburg to face off against Alexander Blessin’s St. Pauli side for the first Bundesliga game of the season. The stage is set for a real intense match, and this will without a doubt be a very tough task for a Dortmund team who’ve gotten off to a decent start in pre-season and the DFB Pokal.
Last season, Alexander Blessin took over from Fabian Hürzeler and was
tasked with keeping St. Pauli in the Bundesliga. Despite no real spectacular signings and a relatively thin squad, Blessin managed to keep the Hamburg based club in the Bundesliga in impressive fashion. His team conceded only 41 goals in the league, which was, believe it or not, the second lowest in the league behind Bayern Munich (32). This of course means that Dortmund will have to be at their very best, if they are to take all three points in their first Bundesliga game of the year.
Player to Watch: Nikola Vasilj
Believe it or not, but St. Pauli’s 29-year old Bosnian goalkeeper, Nikola Vasilj, was actually among the top goalkeepers in Europe last year—at least from a statistical point of view. Vasilj has been with St. Pauli for a good handful of years at this point, and he has only become better with age. His PSxG-GA last year was in the 90th percentile of all goalkeepers in Europe, and he was a big reason why St. Pauli were able to stay in the league after 34 hard fought matchdays.
St. Pauli having a good goalkeeper of course means that it’ll be even more important for BVB to create high-value chances—something the team has struggled a bit with for a while. We just saw how Rot-Weiss Essen successfully managed to keep BVB from creating clear goalscoring oppertunities in the midweek, and I bet you that St. Pauli at the Millerntor-Stadion will be a similar task—of course with a notable gap in quality. In short—BVB will have to be very decisive, because I predict that the chances for scoring will be fewer than we might think.
Predicted Starting XI:
There are a few unknowns heading into this match—namely whether Ryerson’s gonna be fit and if Couto will be able to play a full 90 minutes. If Ryerson is fit, I expect him to start, but otherwise I would put my money on Couto. I think Kovac was a bit conservative in his lineup against Rot-Weiss Essen, but maybe that’s just his style. Nmecha and Gross will undoubtedly play, but whether Bellingham, Brandt or Sabitzer will slot into the midfield, one can only guess. I think Mané did well for himself in the Pokal, so I expect him to fill in once again until one of the senior centerbacks return to form.
Match Prediction:
As last year, we won’t just throw out wild guesses for the result. But if I had to take a guess on how this game’s gonna go, I honestly wouldn’t be too surprised, should Dortmund not manage to win tomorrow. The Millerntor-Stadion is the equivalent of absolute hell for away teams, and I’m certain that the home team will do everything in their power to get a result on Saturday evening, be it one or three points.
