There was a victory and a defeat for Borussia’s Bundesliga youth teams on Matchday 2 of Liga A in the DFB Special Round. The U19s won 3-2 away to Rasenballsport Leipzig, while a severely weakened U17 side lost 2-1 at VfB Stuttgart despite a brave performance.

U19 coach Mike Tullberg reacted to the dominance of the hosts, who had taken the lead through Simon Schierack in the fourth minute and then missed a penalty, after half an hour in Leipzig. “We played slightly too wildly,” said Tullberg, who made changes to his starting line-up in terms of personnel and tactics. Farouk Cisse and Hendry Blank now formed the central defensive partnership, while Jaden Korzynietz moved over to left-back and Danylo Krevsun over to right-back.

“We had more structure in our play after that,” said Tullberg as he reflected on his team’s much improved performance. Vasco Walz scored in the 71st minute to make it 1-1 and Samuel Bamba then made it 2-1 in the 84th minute following a great assist from Danylo Krevsun. Julian Rijkhoff additionally missed a major chance, lacking placement from the penalty spot. Tullberg particularly praised the response from his team after Leipzig levelled the scores through Kurt Vester on 90 minutes. “They fought back and absolutely wanted to win the game.” Samuel Bamba’s winner in the third minute of stoppage time prompted celebrations and will have made the six-hour bus journey home much more relaxed.

BVB will host Fortuna Düsseldorf at the Brackel Youth Performance Centre in their first home game of the Special Round on Thursday (11:00 CET).

U19s: Lisewski – Ubani (Ludwig, 32), Cisse, Meiser (Walz, 32), Blank – Lubach, Onofrietti (Simic, 46), Korzynietz – Bamba, Rijkhoff (Nwachukwu, 65), Krevsun

An unlucky defeat for the U17s

The completely new-look U17s, who – in addition to the five players called up to the U17 European Championship – were missing Aaron Held, Fritz Fleck, Jonas Feddersen, Leys Ucar, Len Wörsdörfer, Valon Cena, Diego Dzonga and Joshua Burstedde due to their Länderpokal involvement, performed respectably in Stuttgart. “The team gave a good account of themselves and showed attitude and enthusiasm,” praised coach Carsten Gorges.

Alex Niziolek opened the scoring at 1-0 following a Jakob Zickler cross. The Dortmund lads then missed several opportunities to extend their lead and Stuttgart ran out slightly fortuitous winners thanks to goals in the closing stages from Rau (77) and Durna (82). “We deserved more,” said a frustrated Gorges of the result.

The U17s will welcome Werder Bremen to the Brackel Youth Performance Centre for their final game of the season on Saturday (14:00 CET).

U17s: Möller – Numbisie, Kerlen, Plöger, Vrlijic (Bittner, 68), Blaszczyk (Sadeghi, 68), Uka, Degener, Vrlijic (Bittner, 68), Zickler (Schwarz, 58), König (Svitek, 46), Nziolek (Markötter, 58)

(wiwi)