Nico Schlotterbeck was fed up after the 2-2 draw against Bodö/Glimt. He believes that not all players were aware of how important a win would have been. BVB lacked a winner’s mentality.
Late on Wednesday evening, BVB experienced a déjà vu that everyone at the club would have preferred to do without: Dortmund dominated the first half, leading 1-0, but failed to extend their lead and then conceded the equalizer shortly before the half-time whistle. And in the second half, the scenario repeated itself in very similar fashion.
In the end, the Norwegian visitors were even closer to a 3-2 win than Borussia. After the game, captain Nico Schlotterbeck appeared very annoyed at the DAZN microphone about the avoidable loss of points, partly because he had already addressed the carelessness in the lead during the break.
Schlotterbeck criticizes his teammates: “Everyone plays their own game.”
“I said that at halftime. After going up 1-0, we started playing extremely erratically and had incredibly poor first touches. Everyone is playing their own game a bit. The players who come on lose every ball.” The center back repeated the core problem over and over again: “You have to kill the game, and we didn’t do that.” Instead of putting the lid on it, BVB got lost in fancy footwork. That’s not enough, Schlotterbeck believes. And he sent a clear message to his teammates: “We could have gone up to 13 points here, and I think some people didn’t realize how important that is. That’s why it’s not bitter, it’s just really bad.”
The 26-year-old was particularly dissatisfied with the performance of the substitutes: “When you come on in the 60th minute, I expect 30 minutes of full throttle.” However, substitutes Karim Adeyemi and Serhou Guirassy achieved virtually nothing. The former admitted in his post-match interview that he had played one of his weakest games of the season. Schlotterbeck didn’t limit his angry rant to the substitutes, though. He was dissatisfied with the entire team: “Killing the game is a matter of quality. If you don’t kill the game and then it’s 2-2 because of a throw-in where you don’t clear the ball, that’s not good enough.“ He said the team lacked a ”winner’s mentality.”
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In the last quarter of an hour, his team played “particularly sloppily” and Bodö/Glimt even had more possession in injury time. “That can’t be the standard. Above all, it’s a home game and that’s not good enough.” And he repeated his assessment: “I think some people didn’t realize how important today was. Now you have to win both games again, otherwise you won’t be in the top 8 again. Then you have two more games and everyone gets upset that they’re playing too much.”
But before the Champions League continues in January against Tottenham and Inter, BVB must first play their penultimate competitive game of 2025 in Freiburg on Sunday (3:30 p.m.) in the Bundesliga. Shortly after the game against Bodö/Glimt, Schlotterbeck was unable to say how he would process the bitter draw. Fortunately, he still has a few days to turn his anger into something positive.
