U19s head into the season with lofty ambitions

The West German Championship has been played in a single-match round robin format lately, but the 14 teams are now set to play a season with home and away fixtures for the first time since 2019 and the outbreak of the corona pandemic. “I’m looking forward to that, the players are also looking forward to that,” assured Mike Tullberg, under whose leadership Borussia’s U19s are yet to lose a Bundesliga game. “That run will end at some point, but we want to prolong it for as long as possible,” the Dane said. Preußen Münster, Bonner SC, RW Oberhausen, RW Essen and VfB Hilden were relegated from last season’s Bundesliga West, which still consisted of 16 teams. Promoted clubs Arminia Bielefeld, Wuppertaler SV and Alemannia Aachen will complete the pool this term. 

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Two completely different halves

Mike Tullberg has been preparing his squad for the first competitive match for almost seven weeks now. “The lads have developed further individually and as a team,” said Tullberg, whose interim assessment is positive. He has placed the focus in training on off-the-ball work. “It’s about the players learning to defend as a unit. They need to internalise that, and that’s a matter of will. We’re making progress, but we’re not yet the finished article. Good training is the key to be successful as a team,” explained Mike Tullberg, who also perceives the tactical and structural development of these technically highly gifted and attack-minded individualists to be a “big challenge”.

Overall, the friendlies have been satisfactory. The U19s kicked off pre-season with a 2-1 defeat against the men’s team of Oberliga club Victoria Clarholz, with victories against Viktoria Köln (3-0), VfL Wolfsburg (5-1) and the Nordsjaelland academy (5-4) subsequently followed by a disappointing 2-1 defeat against the RW Essen B team and a 4-0 triumph over the men’s team of Oberliga side SG Finnentrop/Bamenohl in the final pre-season fixture. The last game in particular leaves Tullberg feeling confident ahead of the start to the season. “I think we’re on a good path. It’s a group that is really exciting and good in footballing terms. This year group finished the two most recent seasons in the U17 Bundesliga in fourth and fifth place. Now they want to show that they can do better.”

Competition stronger than ever before

BVB are once again represented in four competitions: in addition to the Bundesliga, they will play in the UEFA Youth League, which starts on 19/20 September, and in the DFB-Pokal (first round in Hoffenheim on 2 September). At the end of the season, the Black & Yellows will compete in the Westfalenpokal. But priority will be given to the final season of the A Junior Bundesliga, where the Black & Yellows have made their mark in recent years in particular. Since the founding of this three-pool division in 2003, no club has won more German Championship titles than Borussia Dortmund (4). They are followed by Schalke 04 (3) and VfL Wolfsburg (2).

“Borussia Dortmund’s ambition is to compete for the German Championship. We’re aiming to achieve a title hat-trick by winning a third West German Championship in a row. But we know that it’ll be very, very difficult because with clubs like FC Schalke 04, who have won the B Junior Bundesliga West title twice in a row, Bayer Leverkusen, DFB-Pokal winners Köln, Mönchengladbach and Bochum, the competition is stronger than ever before,” explained Mike Tullberg, who will have the full squad at his disposal in Leverkusen. (wiwi)