Dortmund suffered a 3-0 defeat in Leipzig at the weekend. “The Leipzig game is still under wraps” for BVB, Kehl said, but despite all the praise for Manchester City he was also confident. “Overall, Manchester are a very strong team, are favorites in the group, possibly favorites in the Champions League,” said Kehl. “But why shouldn’t we surprise him?” But Borussia has to get Haaland under control for that. “Erling is in fantastic form”, but “it’s not just about Erling,” emphasized Kehl.
Haaland, who moved from Salzburg to Dortmund, scored 86 goals in 89 competitive games at BVB in two and a half years before moving to Manchester in the summer and already holding twelve goals after the first eight games for City. In the Champions League, the 22-year-old Norwegian has already scored 25 times after 20 appearances – no one in the history of the competition has reached this mark faster or younger.
“The numbers speak for themselves. I love this new routine of talking about Erling and his goals in every press conference,” said his coach Josep Guardiola. “And you have the feeling that he could always score more goals,” said his coach. Because of this and because of the visual resemblance to the character Daemon Targaryen from the series “Game of Thrones”, many in England already call him “Demon”.
Explosive Austrian duel in the Bernabeau
In Madrid there is an Austrian duel between Alaba and Xaver Schlager. Schlager’s Leipzig club colleague Laimer, on the other hand, will be out for weeks due to an injury to the syndesmosis ligament in the left ankle. “His range, his behavior when pressing, his aggressiveness – we have to deal with it differently, through clever group tactical behavior,” said Leipzig coach Marco Rose. “Basically, however, it will not change anything about the idea that we have.”
The people of Leipzig have no time to lament, as the gala against Dortmund is followed by the away test at the defending champion of the premier class. “We travel there with a big smile,” said Schlager. The appearance at Real will answer the question of whether the 3-0 win against the German runners-up is just a snapshot, a reaction to the change of coach from Domenico Tedesco to Marco Rose or the sustained return to the old RB mentality. Rose said that “the second step is the harder one”.
Real under coach Carlo Ancelotti got off to a perfect start to the season with five wins in the first five league games, success in the Supercup and the start of the Champions League (3-0 at Celtic Glasgow). Striker Vinicius Junior in particular is in spectacular form: the Brazilian has scored in all five La Liga games.