Borussia Dortmund are currently second in their UEFA Champions League group, where they have just six points from four games and are six points behind leaders Ajax, who beat them in both the meetings between the two teams. The German club started with an away win at Besiktas and came back home to win against Sporting Club. After that, they have faced Ajax away and at home and have lost both fixtures 0-4 and 1-3 respectively.
BVB are also second in the Bundesliga standings with 24 points from their 11 games, four points behind leaders Bayern Munich. Dortmund last won the league in 2012, when Jurgen Klopp was in charge of the managerial position at the club, and even after coming close multiple times, they have been unable to win the league in the past nine years. In this post, we will have a look at the attacking stats of some Dortmund players and the team to see if they have any realistic chances of winning silverware this season. We will be discussing the rise of Jude Bellingham, the resurgence of Marco Reus, and the domination by Erling Haaland in this post.
The above viz shows the attacking dashboard of youngster Jude Bellingham for Dortmund in the UEFA Champions League. Bellingham has risen into a first-team regular this season, after Jadon Sancho’s departure to Man United. He has taken up the role of the eccentric winger and has been scoring and providing goals for his team. He has scored twice in the league and once in the UCL for BVB this season. The black line in the above viz shows the average of the particular stat for all players in the Champions League. It is visible that Belligham’s performances have produced much better than average stats in almost all attacking categories.
Marco Reus’ attacking and creativity dashboard shows that the 32-year-old attacking midfielder has once again returned to top form in his career. He has been scoring and assisting goals in attack this season, and has made a great understanding with striker Erling Haaland. He has scored thrice in the league and once in the UCL this season, and has produced better than average numbers in almost all of the above-mentioned stats.
Haaland has managed to score 10 goals in all competitions this season and has continuously proved himself to be one of the best strikers in the world. The above viz shows that he has been one of the best strikers in UCL in terms of stats, even though he has only scored once so far in the competition. He is considered to be one of the best young talents in the world and is the most important player for Dortmund this season.
The above viz shows the passing partnerships and xT generation for Haaland in the few UCL games this season. It can be seen that Reus has been finding and assisting Haaland’s goals this season and also Bellingham’s. Dortmund would want to keep hopes of a title this season alive, and they will have to be lucky in the UCL with such a young squad, or they will have to hope that Bayern Munich drops some points in the Bundesliga, to compete for that trophy. At the moment, the form of Haaland, Reus, and Bellingham are the most important things for the BVB.
