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kinderriegel:
Hey :)
Normally, I don’t answer a lot of these questions (I don’t like spamming other people’s dashboards with this stuff), however since I’ve been doing it for the last few days, this one doesn’t make a difference either :)
Well, I’ve been following Neven’s career ever since he started playing for Mainz in the second Bundesliga and you can definitely see the development. The first game he played for Mainz against Bayern was… well, it was his first game, he was 18 then - just like Mats he was a little nervous. But starting with the following season (2007/2008 in the second Bundesliga) he became stronger with every game. He even replaced Bo Svensson, who is a great (well… he does have his moments where you just try to remember which team he’s playing for) defender as well and didn’t miss a single game because he didn’t perform well enough. He just missed one game because he was late for practice and Kloppo wanted to teach him a lesson (Neven never came late again after that).
He’s a different type of player than Mats or Santana though because Neven, as he’s often said himself, just loves to tackle (I don’t quite know if this is the right term to “grätschen” though and I’m too lazy to look it up). I might have to re-watch a few games because since I’m not a fan of BVB, I haven’t seen all of them, but in my memory, the games he played in 2008, 2009 and 2010 with Tele (he didn’t play all of the games with Mats, since he was injured in 2008, 2009 and 2010) were also really great, they balanced each other in their play and I don’t think you can compare these two players. Most of the time you need two different types of players in the CB.
Of course, every defender (footie player) has bad days - I can still see a lot of mistakes that were made by Mats and smoothed out by Neven in the early years (and the other way round). Same goes for every other defender pair that is out there. That’s why a lot of them work great together. With some you see the difference in their play right away, with others you don’t. It’s like comparing Mats Hummels to Holger Badstuber, Jerome Boateng or Benedikt Höwedes. All four of them play a different style and not all goes well together (like Badstuber and Mats). It’s like comparing apples to oranges. The fact that they’re playing the same position doesn’t mean they’re playing in the same way. There are also a lot of other facts to take into consideration, like build up of the game. Neven has often taken over the part in the last years but with the beginning of this season (and at the end of last season as well) Mats has snagged that part away from him. Well, of course you never know what exactly Kloppo has told them. Maybe he wanted Mats to take over the part. There are still those annoying long-distance passes from the defence to the strikers. It’s Kloppo’s style. But well. Different topic :)
There were a lot of scenes by Neven in which I just really wanted to bang my head against the next wall because of the lack in concentration on the pitch. But well, that has happened with Mats as well as with Holger Badstuber, Benedikt Höwedes, Nemanja Vidic, Per Mertesacker, Arne and Manuel Friedrich and all the others as well. It’s normal. Also I might think that a lot of people are judging Neven because of this season. He didn’t have his greatest moments in the past few months and he had some problems (also considering injuries) that affected his play. But with many people becoming BVB fans in the second leg of last season, they remember more of Neven’s recent games because they haven’t seen the ones in the first leg of last season or the other years before and it’s what gets stuck in their heads. That’s normal, too. However he has improved in the last games (before his mid-face fracture) and was getting back his old strength of last season. He’s still no Vidic though but when you take the development into consideration that he has made in the last four years, it’s extreme. I’m still saying that you can’t compare two different types of CB defenders, but I’d choose Neven over Tele when Mats’ partner should be picked and I’d pick Tele over Mats for Neven’s partner. Yes, there’s a difference :)
That’s what I think of Neven as a defender. He’s got talent, was a bit unlucky at the beginning of this season, but there were a lot of times that he was there when needed. It’s like in the Hanover game. He did his job for 80 minutes and everything that’s remembered by people, are those two slips.
His role in the BVB team? You mean like a leader or something? Well, I don’t know much about the team structures, etc. because I simply don’t care (sorry, I’m still not a fan of the BVB). But I guess he’s one of the players whose opinion counts when being asked about the defence matters. As for the player’s council… I really don’t know if he’s even in there. I know that Mats is, but I don’t know about Neven. What’s been often addressed in interviews though is that Mats appreciates Neven’s opinions and that they talk a lot about their jobs.
Sorry for the novel :o
Oh my, I just saw that you reblogged my answer and tagged it with “amazing post is amazing” :o I have to reblog this now.
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This blog is a dedication to Neven Subotic and Mats Hummels, the former "Kinderriegel" of Borussia Dortmund.
None of the pictures posted here are mine unless stated otherwise.
There will be lots of snark, sarcasm and irony in this blog.
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