Nico Schulz and a Bundesliga title race
Trust me, this is going somewhere
Explore the prospect of a Bundesliga title race in 2021/22 using nothing but the career of Nico Schulz as source material.
Well, we do like a challenge.
Why are we so often so reductive when it comes to footballers? They’re good or they’re bad. That’s it. Not just misused, not suited to a certain style, a certain system, team, coach, league. We reduce players to brilliant or terrible, end of. But it’s rarely ever that straightforward.
Nico Schulz has been around in senior football for around a decade now. First as a winger and occasional left-back without very much end product for Hertha BSC. Then as an attacking left-back who was never first choice and suffered a cruciate ligament rupture while playing for Borussia Mönchengladbach.
And then he joined TSG Hoffenheim. And he was really good. Fully fit and played in a role that suited him perfectly, Schulz became more or less undroppable as Hoffenheim finished third in the Bundesliga in 2017/18 and ninth in 2018/19. His form was so impressive in those two seasons that he became something of a regular for Germany and Borussia Dortmund were convinced to spend €25.5m to sign him. The problem is, he hasn’t been very good there.
That looks like it might be about to change. You see, at Hoffenheim, Schulz’s role was a pretty simple one. He could pretty much play in a straight line. The flanks were left free ahead of the wingbacks and Schulz, like Pavel Kadeřábek on the opposite side, was given licence to drive forward, using his impressive pace to get in behind and stretch Hoffenheim’s opponents. The middle of the pitch and the intricacies that take place there? Not his problem. Team-mates getting in his way by occupying the space ahead of him? Never a problem. Get the ball, play a one-two if necessary, beat the opponent for pace.
The simplicity of the role was obvious and it suited what Schulz brought to the table while making what he didn’t offer an irrelevance.
And it makes you wonder what Dortmund thought they were getting. Under Lucien Favre, Dortmund would almost exclusively play with two players on each flank. A wingback and a tricky, creative wide player. The two would have to combine, they would have to dovetail. Favre didn’t trust Raphaël Guerreiro to play left-back in the coach’s first season at the club and it looked like the Portuguese would leave in the summer of 2018 but no offers came in so he stayed. He didn’t just stay, but he was brilliant. So Schulz arrived for €25.5m, only for Dortmund to still have a player in his position who offered something a lot closer to what Favre wanted.
The impact on his performance has been obvious.
Since joining Dortmund, Schulz has been on the ball more but receives it closer to his own goal a lot more often, asked to combine in build-up situations, break through a press, or find a smart pass. All things that were done before he received possession, generally further upfield, in a Hoffenheim shirt.
In the final third, Schulz doesn’t have the quick feet or positional flexibility of Guerreiro and has struggled to strike up much of a relationship with the winger ahead of him.
It hasn’t gone well. The German has started just 13 Bundesliga games in the last two seasons. Compared to his Hoffenheim seasons, there are far fewer shot creating actions and he isn’t carrying the ball nearly as far upfield when he receives it, despite receiving possession much closer to his own goal much more often.
But things are looking up with Marco Rose now in charge of the Schwarzgelben. Schulz was expected to be sold this summer but no offers arrived and, with Guerreiro injured after his involvement at Euro 2020, he has started the new season in the side. And Rose’s quick, direct approach and narrow system seems to suit him. He can play in straight lines, use his athleticism, and has the flank to himself again.
Dormund have used a 4-diamond-2 formation under their new boss in pre-season and in last week’s cup win over Wehen Wiesbaden. It appears perfect to get the best out of the majority of their players, including Schulz. A change of shape came for the Bundesliga opener against Eintracht Frankfurt, with BVB in more of a 4-3-3, but Marco Reus played his left-sided role very narrowly, allowing Schulz plenty of space ahead of him.
It’s good news for Schulz and good news for Dortmund, who have huge question marks on the opposite side of the defence as well. The narrow approach that seems to benefit Schulz also makes Felix Passlack a more viable option on the right and could work wonders for Thomas Meunier, who struggled in his debut season with the club and publicly complained that he would be more suited to a more offensive role.
In Rose, there are already signs that Dortmund now have a coach who can make the team greater than the sum of its parts, getting more out of players who were deemed not good enough and exploiting the strengths of everyone in his squad. And having that in the dugout and on the training ground, along with a squad that is full of truly exceptional players like Erling Haaland, Marco Reus and Jude Bellingham, makes Dortmund genuine title contenders this season.
The problem there is, as ever, Bayern Munich. And Julian Nagelsmann. The Bayern squad is arguably weaker than a year ago, when it was already weaker than the previous year. But Nagelsmann, simply put, makes teams better. Nobody seems to put a team together to get as much out of the players as the 34-year-old, with the list of players who have shone under him before moving on and disappointing their new clubs already extraordinarily long. Werder Bremen, Newcastle, Schalke, Dortmund and Bayern fans have all been left underwhelmed by the likes of Kevin Vogt, Joelinton, Mark Uth, Jeremy Toljan, and Sebastian Rudy. After all, Nagelsmann was the coach who managed to get so much out of Schulz that it convinced Dortmund to spend €25.5m on him in the first place.