During his time in charge of Red Bull Salzburg, Roger Schmidt looked to Jürgen Klopp’s blueprint of Gegenpressing for success, winning both the Austrian Bundesliga, secured in record time, and the Austrian domestic cup with a gung-ho 4-2-4 system that used the high intensity pressing Klopp pioneered with his Dortmund side. Schmidt’s own twist on the approach was brought to European attention with Salzburg’s fantastic 3-0 win at Ajax in the Europa League.
On Saturday, Schmidt came to Dortmund to use Gegenpressing against its founder. And won, 0-2, in the season’s opener at the Westfalenstadion to leave Klopp contemplating where Dortmund go next after all pre-season optimism was immediately extinguished. More specifically it took just 9 seconds for the visitors to strike, Karim Bellarabi netting the fastest goal in Bundesliga history.
Bellarabi had been something of a surprise inclusion, having missed most of the 2012-13 campaign with injury he spent last season on loan at Eintracht Braunschweig, scoring just 3 goals as they were relegated. Though Schmidt recalled the winger over pre-season and in Dortmund he was superb, scoring then turning provider in the final minutes as he robbed the ball off Erik Durm to play in Stefan Kiessling for the second.
Kiessling hit 19 goals for Leverkusen last season on top of the 27 he scored the season before and he was man of the match in Dortmund, winning a large amount of headers and leading the Leverkusen press with high work-rate. “It was very intense today,” said the striker. “But you want that, and you just have to go through that. And looking at the result, it was great.”
Kiessling has a cookery book entitled “A Recipe for Success” and that could be the name given to Schmidt’s early days at the BayArena. After Jupp Heynckes left for Bayern Munich three years ago, Leverkusen have been in something of a transition, managing respectable league finishes of 5th, 3rd and last season’s 4th, but flittering between the management of Robin Dutt, Sascha Lewandowski and Sami Hyppia.
Under the innovative guidance of Schmidt, a relatively young coach of 47, they will be hoping for stability. A 3-2 away lead will be taken into the second leg of their Champions League qualifying tie with FC Copenhagen and the Germans have unfinished business in the competition, suffering the humiliation of a 0-5 home defeat to Manchester United in last year’s group stage before falling 6-1 on aggregate to Paris St Germain.
That was under the inexperienced stewardship of Sami Hyppia who in the summer left for Brighton after being sacked from Leverkusen in April for overseeing a run of 1 league win from 12 that left the club’s Champions League hopes in serious doubt. Lewandowski stepped back in to achieve a fourth placed finish and barring a turnaround, Schmidt will return them to the competition this week.
Bellarabi and Kiessling, who also scored five goals in the German Cup first round tie at Alemannia Waldalgesheim the previous Friday, both scored out in Denmark as Hakan Calhanoglu impressed in the creative role behind the front-line. Son Heung-min hit the winner in the second half but Calhanoglu’s display was memorable, sparking hope that his £12 million acquisition from Hamburg could provide Leverkusen with the creative influence they have been lacking since the sharp decline in form of Renato Augusto.
The Turkish international, handed the number 10 jersey in Leverkusen, was one of the few bright spots of a miserable campaign for Hamburg last term and his signing was the most expensive in a transfer window that has been conducted sensibly. Josip Drmic, who scored 17 times for Nurnberg last season as Bundesliga’s third top-scorer, was brought in for just under £6 million while Brazilian left-back Wendell arrived from Gremio for £5.7 million. The defence has also been bolstered with two shrewd loan signings, the highly-rated Tin Jedjav comes in from Roma while Kyriakos Papadopoulos, a recent target for Liverpool, moves from Schalke.
Winger Sidney Sam moves in the opposite direction to Papadopoulos on a permanent deal but Emre Can’s £10 million move to Liverpool was the only significant departure over the summer. Interest in holding midfielder Lars Bender has been fended off and he will continue as vice-captain alongside captain Simon Rolfes and Stefan Reinartz in a strong-looking midfield spine.
Against Dortmund it was third captain Gonzalo Castro who lined-up next to Rolfes and he was full of energy as he supported the attack, illustrating the vast amount of options Schmidt finds at his disposal. Behind them Emir Spahic and Omer Toprak remained steadfast in the face of Dortmund’s talented forwards, Spahic especially brilliant as Marco Reus, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Ciro Immobile and Patrick Aubameyang found little joy in their attacks. When they did they were repelled by goalkeeper Bernd Leno.
The greatest encouragement for Schmidt and co. would have come in attack but even he couldn’t have envisaged his team would have clicked so quickly when going forward. Even the 9th second goal involved 3 players as Sebastian Boenisch and Heung-Min linked on the left to release Bellarabi. Schmidt however, wasn’t so humble. “That’s no coincidence,” he said after the match. “We talked about this before the match. It might have been a bit of luck, but we’ve tried. It worked out.”
Speaking in the summer, Sporting Director Rudi Voller held palpable faith that his club had found the right man to take charge. “We sounded out the market and very quickly made up our minds to opt for Roger Schmidt,” he said. “His approach to playing football fits perfectly with us.” With 11 goals scored in their opening 3 games, including a 0-2 win at the home of the club who are tipped to be the main challengers to Bayern Munich’s crown, that is looking every inch the right prophecy.
