As Champions League elimination looms, Marco Reus is ready to fight
- Chuck Smith
- Mar 5, 2019
- 2 min read
Borussia Dortmund suffered an embarrassing 3-0 defeat at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur in the opening leg of the Champions League tie between the Bundesliga and Premier League powers. The loss was humiliating for BVB, which has been going through a slump since the start of 2019.
Dortmund seemingly has not recovered from that gut-punch by the Spurs and even the return of Marco Reus last weekend against FC Augsburg could not lift the Black and Yellows to find that magic that carried the squad in the Hinrunde.
It would be easy to just count Dortmund out now and say that Lucien Favre's roster is destined to finalize its treble of failures by adding a Champions League exit and a Bundesliga collapse to its DFB-Pokal misfire.
To do that, however, would be discounting the internal fire that drives Reus. As Reus told the New York Times, a career filled with untimely injuries and lost time continues to fuel the 29-year-old's hunger for success.
“It is human to think about what I have missed,” he said. “But if I regret too much, think about what I have lost, I lose focus on what I need to do. You cannot rewind. This is not a computer game that you can play again. All I can do is try to be better, to be luckier, next time. You have a lot of time to think about other things, too. You become aware of what you are doing, and what comes next, and when that will start. I have three or four years left. That is still quite a period, but football goes fast.”
The magnitude of what Dortmund is facing today at Westfalenstadion is not lost on Reus and given his resolve, it is hard to think that he will allow Dortmund to just roll over for the invading English squad. Aside of his dynamic play and intrinsic motivation, Reus is the driving force behind his squad. The rest of the roster follows Reus' lead and if he comes out today ready to bury Tottenham Hotspur today, BVB may very well be able to at least make this a struggle for the English side.
As Reus told Goal:
“We have played many games in this stadium where we’ve written history and we are in position to achieve the impossible. It is important to believe in ourselves, and give a great performance. We need to find the right balance between defense and attack. We need to reach our peak, and score the goals in the right moment. But we believe in ourselves. We have to be stronger, come out stronger; have the right mentality. We’ve shown that, I think we’ll come out of this situation."
Can Dortmund produce a 4-0 shutout? Maybe not, but Reus certainly won't allow his squad to do anything less than exert all its energy to try and make it happen. As a man whose career has been marred by such bad luck, Reus knows today is an opportunity to grab fate with his own hands and try to make what looks to be impossible become a reality.
Comentarios