BVB: How Nico Schlotterbeck dominated the cup final

Headball in reverse running, rescue for the beaten goalkeeper, a fantastic tackle: the future BVB professional Nico Schlotterbeck delivers an outstanding performance in the DFB Cup final. However, SC Freiburg misses to reward them.

• a tackle like from the picture book
• an honor that Schlotterbeck doesn't care about

After 120 exhausting minutes and a penalty shootout, which was tragically ended for his SC Freiburg, Nico Schlotterbeck stands alone in front of the eastern curve of the Berlin Olympic Stadium. While the team trotted towards the lawn after the bitter defeat in the first DFB Cup final in club history, the central defender stays a little longer. "Schlot-Ter-Beck, Schlot-Ter-Beck, Schlot-Ter-Beck", the fans call again and again, and thus celebrate the man whose outstanding performance in this final the finals club so close to his first big title has led like never before.

So while the night slowly lies over the capital, Schlotterbeck is now there. It looks a bit as if he didn't know exactly what to feel at that moment. There is exhaustion after this exhausting final. The grief, the disappointment and the anger about it, despite leadership and more than 60-minute surcharge, in the end to leave the square as a loser. But also the pride of having played a great season where even the defeat this summer-windy Saturday evening does not change anything.

"I am emotionally empty," says Schlotterbeck after the Südwestrundfunk, which is not surprising when looking at his extraordinary work. Because in the almost three hours between the kick-off at 8 p.m. and the decisive penalty shot at 10:47 p.m., the 22-year-old delivers what can be summarized as a "master class" in the English-speaking area. This is freely translated by a masterpiece that is also suitable as a teaching example. So if you want to watch a modern defender, you should look at a recording of this final.

a tackle like from the picture book

Schlotterbeck delivers the most formative, albeit difficult to reproduce scene, a few minutes after the Freiburg lead by Maximilian Eggestein a few minutes after the Freiburg. The 24th minute runs when the finals club gets into need in its own penalty area. At the end of this need, Leipzig's exceptional striker Christopher Nkunku from a short distance at the end, goalkeeper Mark Flekken has already overcome. Schlotterbeck, however, reacts at lightning speed, clarifies the ball in front of the line and then cheers so emotionally in his own goal that the positive energy jumps to the fan curve, which is certainly 30 meters away.

In this final, the 1.91 meter tall defender is without doubt what is often referred to in the football language as "emotional leader". Schlotterbeck drives himself, drives the Freiburg appendix, drives his teammates. Gestures, Cup final on the large stage certainly also effective in public, but above all as a performance model. He wins his duels on the ground, as in the 72nd minute, when he separates Konrad Laimer from the ball with a picture book tactile near the penalty area. Just as in the air, such as in the 100th minute, when he can prevent Nordi Mukiele in trouble in reverse in reverse.

In the building game, Schlotterbeck keeps demanding the ball, playing most of all Freiburg with 86 passes, but with increasing playing time and again and again is looking for the dribbling - without going too much. Shortly before the end of the first half of the extension, the central defender moves up, putting through Janik Haberer at the opposing penalty area, who, however, grants the chance. His positional game is beyond any doubt over long distances of the game, the high -quality Leipzig offensive has to work hard. It sounds almost logical that the compensation from a second ball falls after a standard situation and outside of Schlotterbeck's sphere of activity.

an honor that Schlotterbeck doesn't care about

The international, who has also been appointed to the squad for the four Juni appointments of the DFB team, describes his last working day for SC Freiburg as "brutally intensive". For the new season, Schlotterbeck, whose career has just started, is moving to Borussia Dortmund. Both clubs, which praised each other for the pleasant negotiation atmosphere, have agreed silence about the transfer fee - however, in unanimous reports, however, the speeches plus the customary bonus payments that depend on the development of the changing is.

"A bit wistful," says Schlotterbeck, after his 56th and last competitive game in the Breisgau jersey. The temptation to win the DFB Cup as a farewell gift was great, and with the guidance in the back and the outnumbered through the red card for Leipzig's Marcel Halstenberg shortly after the change of sides, almost everything for the finals club seemed to run. It is "difficult to accept," said Schlotterbeck at "Sky", "that we have lost". The Freiburg controllers should feel similarly, especially with the impression that such an extraordinary performance has not been converted into something to a little letter -minded.

In the end, and that may make the SC a not-so-resistant winner of this evening, the result does not seem to play an oversized role in the long run. The 30,000 people in the Olympic Stadium who keep it with the Freiburgers are louder than the appendix of the final winner with their applause for the unfortunate final loser over long distances, who rolls out the amazingly meaningless "lawn ball final Leipzig" before the kick -off. In the Freiburg Block there is much more expressive: "Unique club - as you should be football". At the same time, an unmistakable swipe in the direction of the opponent, who was founded as a marketing vehicles of the beverage group of an Austrian right -wing populist and has more players in the squad as a voting members.

Incidentally, Schlotterbeck still receives an honor that evening, he doesn't care about it. The 22-year-old is voted "Man of the Match", as the DFB calls the player of the game, and any other choice would simply have been a cheek. Schlotterbeck, however, doesn't care. He prefers to emphasize with a view to his farewell to the finals club that "the club grown so heart". And if you then take a look at the pictures, how Schlotterbeck is celebrated by the fans, how he then holds out of the curve back to his team and your hands in front of the face to pour a few tears that suspects: it is left.

Torben Siemer

© n-TV