1. Sebastian Rode
One of the eight new signing for Dortmund this summer and perhaps the one who raised more eyebrows than anyone else, Sebastian Rode arrived from rivals Bayern Munich, thus becoming the second player to do so after Mario Gotze. Fans were very optimistic for the 25-year-old rugged midfielder.
Confessing he was a Dortmund fan when started growing up was enough for Rode to be a fan favorite and a good pre-season was a cherry on the top.
However, after ten matches, Rode looks seemingly out of sorts and out of place in Tuchel’s Dortmund roster. Managing only 451 mins this campaign, it appears that the pragmatic midfielder so far, has failed to exhibit his qualities with the Dortmund first team, mostly due to his lack of ambition with the ball.
As Dustin Ward at Statsbomb observed, Rode’s passes travel 2.5 yards away from goal on average, meaning that he often hinders the transition to attack by always taking the conservative route.
The another reason for Sebastian Rode’s ineffectual rendition has been simple. The existence of Julian Weigl…. Because of the matching essence of the two midfielders in Weigl and Rode, the Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel was only going to pick one of the two midfielders in his single pivoted 4-1-4-1 starting lineup.
If Rode wants a foreseeable future at Dortmund, he surely needs to step up his game onto the next level and start being more direct rather than his usual conservative route of play.
