Tuchel: Bayern hammering helped Dortmund

Simon Foster 09:38 05/03/2016
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  • Genuine title hopes: Dortmund.

    Borussia Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel admits their 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Bayern Munich in October helped turn his team into title challengers.

    Dortmund can close the gap on Bayern at the top to just two points with victory in today’s Der Klassiker at the Westfalenstadion. It is 17 league fixtures since BVB were hammered by five goals at the Allianz Arena.

    Since that game Tuchel’s side have failed to win just three times and, overall, have taken 31 out of 33 points at home this season.

    “The reverse fixture showed that you can lose by a high margin because of small errors. But you can learn from that,” said Tuchel. “The 5-1 loss in Munich has made us into what we are now. And we are very happy with that.”

    Bayern suffered a shock 2-1 home defeat to Mainz on Wednesday and Tuchel admits Dortmund must now seize the initiative.

    “The ball is now in our court,” added the Dortmund coach. “We’re now looking forward to this game even more. We’re in the position we wanted to be in and which gives us the chance to close in on them. “We’ll do all we can to take the next step and reduce the gap even further.”

    On the flip side, if Bayern manage to bounce back from only their second loss of the season with a victory in Dortmund, then they would restore their eight-point cushion at the summit and be overwhelming favourites to retain their title. That is what Bayern striker Robert Lewandowski is hoping for as he returns to face his former club.

    “We knew even before the Mainz game that the Dortmund match would be important no matter how many points we led them by,” he told sport1.de. “Now it is just five. It would make things easier for us if we beat them and have an eight-point cushion again.”

    The Bundesliga is not the only title being contested between these two sides, with Lewandowski and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang both gunning for the individual prize on offer for the league’s top goalscorers.

    The Pole has 23 goals to his name while the Gabonese forward is just one goal behind him in the race for the coveted Torjagerkanone, which Lewandowski won in 2012 as a Dortmund player.

    “Aubameyang is a great player and our defenders are going to have to pay close attention to him,” Lewandowski said. “Dortmund’s game is centred around him, but they are not only about Aubameyang – they also have Marco Reus and Henrikh Mkhitaryan who are very good players.

    “Their whole team are playing very well at the moment. Pierre is a great guy, but I hope I’m happier than him after Saturday’s game.”

    Dealing with Aubameyang, Reus and Mkhitaryan will be the duty of Bayern’s makeshift defence, with Medhi Benatia likely to be partnered once again by David Alaba in the continued absence of Jerome Boateng, Holger Badstuber and Javi Martinez, even though the latter is back in training.

    Tuchel has an almost fully-fit squad to choose from and, after affording himself the luxury of giving half of his first-team regulars a rest in the midweek win over Darmstadt, he can be expected to name his strongest team for the mouthwatering clash between clubs who have shared 18 of the last 22 Bundesliga titles between them.

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