Borussia Dortmund travel to Real Madrid Tuesday in a rematch of last season’s Champions League final amid worrying form and criticism of coach Nuri Sahin.
Tipped to be eliminated at the group stage last year, Dortmund arrived for the showpiece finale at Wembley in June, riding a wave of momentum.
Dortmund dominated the first half and well into the second, but were felled by a trademark Real Madrid counterpunch, conceding twice in the final 20 minutes to lose 2-0.
Since then, coach Edin Terzic was shown the door, falling victim to a poor domestic season with a fifth-placed finish, bringing his assistant Sahin into the hot seat.
Sahin, a Dortmund junior who had stints at Real Madrid and Liverpool as a player, has overseen 10 games in all competitions.
Now he faces the biggest test of his mettle to date with his Dortmund team having looked inconsistent and still appearing to lack a clear tactical identity.
– Home and away –
Dortmund started the season with a solid 2-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt, but were later thrashed 5-1 by Stuttgart.
Sahin’s side are seventh in the Bundesliga, but are top of the 36-team Champions League group after wins at Club Brugge and against Celtic at home.
The only discernible trend so far for Dortmund has been their strength at home and their woes on the road.
In front of their 82,000-strong Westfalenstadion home crowd, Dortmund have won five from five, scoring 19 goals and conceding six.
On the road however, their two wins in five matches have come against fourth division Phoenix Luebeck, and Brugge, who sit fourth in the Belgian league.
Real, by contrast, have won seven from seven at home in all competitions, scoring 19 and conceding just four.
Up front, the German side look set to arrive in Madrid lacking firepower with Karim Adeyemi, Julien Duranville, Giovanni Reyna and attack-minded defender Yan Couto on the injury list.
Aside from the ever-reliable Gregor Kobel in goal, Dortmund’s only trump card is the form of striker Serhou Guirassy.
The Guinean, who joined from Stuttgart in the summer, has 12 goals in his past eight games for club and country, only failing to score once.
Sahin endured an unhappy spell at Real who signed him after he won the 2011 Bundesliga title in a Jurgen Klopp-powered Dortmund side.
Hovever, the Turkey international played just 10 games in all competitions.
He was loaned out to Liverpool and then to Dortmund, with the return made permanent three years later.
The former defensive midfielder is confident he knows the source of the side’s struggles, complaining about a lack of focus and cohesion in defence.
An 83rd-minute Guirassy header took Dortmund to a 2-1 win against promoted St Pauli on Friday, but an “extremely annoyed” Sahin was not in the mood to celebrate afterwards.
“It’s an issue. It’s not acceptable, we have to do better,” a frustrated Sahin said of Dortmund’s poor defending.
“We conceded a goal like that against Celtic where we didn’t defend well, we conceded a goal like that against Union (Berlin), and now it’s happened again.”
Real’s Kylian Mbappe seems to have hit his straps after a slow start by his standards, scoring in five of his past six league games.
Mbappe may not have been there when the sides clashed at Wembley, but Dortmund have some experience keeping tabs on the Frenchman.
Dortmund faced Mbappe with former side Paris Saint-Germain four times last season and restricted the France captain to one just one goal, which came from the penalty spot.
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