Mats Hummels was responsible for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s goal to make it 1-0 thanks to his elegant touch, his impulsive dribbling and his inch-perfect pass to Ciro Immobile. But the World Champion had to be happy with Borussia Dortmund’s 2-2 draw at the end of what was, in parts, a high-quality game against VfL Wolfsburg. BVB still occupy one of the relegation places as they sit in 16th on 15 points. On Saturday (15:30 CET), they will take on bottom of the table Werder Bremen in their 17th and final game of the first half of the season. The World Champion spoke to DFB.de about the current situation.
DFB.de: Mr Hummels, you played well against a tough opposition but were unable to come away with three points. What are the overriding feelings?
Mats Hummels: They are relatively balanced. Obviously we are somewhat disappointed, especially as we conceded so late. It was a game that swung back and forth for both sides. After the break, Wolfsburg could have taken the lead. They had two very dangerous chances after we turned over the ball rather badly. After we went 2-1 ahead, we could have settled the game and perhaps should have. But unfortunately for us, Wolfsburg are very strong from set-pieces.
DFB.de: Both of their goals came from set-pieces. How annoying is that?
Hummels: Both goals came from- like always- individual mistakes. But that’s the case with 90% of goals in football. It’s just something that happens.
DFB.de: You had chances throughout almost the whole game to settle the match, especially after going 1-0 ahead.
Hummels: The only point in which things could have turned in our favour was after going 1-0 up. There were three or four times when we won the ball, in particular Ilkay (Gündogan), who had two or three good opportunities, but we were unable to connect with the final pass or failed to take the chance. We could have put ourselves in a good position early on. But you don’t know what is going to happen. The bottom line is, it’s all speculation. Wolfsburg played well and I believe that we played well, so a draw is a fair result. Wolfsburg have a strong team that deserve to be near the top.
DFB.de: Absolutely. Now you head to Bremen for a game against a team that are at the bottom of the league. You only have a few days to prepare for your last game of the year. What hopes do you have as you travel up north?
Mats Hummels was responsible for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s goal to make it 1-0 thanks to his elegant touch, his impulsive dribbling and his inch-perfect pass to Ciro Immobile. But the World Champion had to be happy with Borussia Dortmund’s 2-2 draw at the end of what was, in parts, a high-quality game against VfL Wolfsburg. BVB still occupy one of the relegation places as they sit in 16th on 15 points. On Saturday (15:30 CET), they will take on bottom of the table Werder Bremen in their 17th and final game of the first half of the season. The World Champion spoke to DFB.de about the current situation.
DFB.de: Mr Hummels, you played well against a tough opposition but were unable to come away with three points. What are the overriding feelings?
Mats Hummels: They are relatively balanced. Obviously we are somewhat disappointed, especially as we conceded so late. It was a game that swung back and forth for both sides. After the break, Wolfsburg could have taken the lead. They had two very dangerous chances after we turned over the ball rather badly. After we went 2-1 ahead, we could have settled the game and perhaps should have. But unfortunately for us, Wolfsburg are very strong from set-pieces.
DFB.de: Both of their goals came from set-pieces. How annoying is that?
Hummels: Both goals came from- like always- individual mistakes. But that’s the case with 90% of goals in football. It’s just something that happens.
DFB.de: You had chances throughout almost the whole game to settle the match, especially after going 1-0 ahead.
Hummels: The only point in which things could have turned in our favour was after going 1-0 up. There were three or four times when we won the ball, in particular Ilkay (Gündogan), who had two or three good opportunities, but we were unable to connect with the final pass or failed to take the chance. We could have put ourselves in a good position early on. But you don’t know what is going to happen. The bottom line is, it’s all speculation. Wolfsburg played well and I believe that we played well, so a draw is a fair result. Wolfsburg have a strong team that deserve to be near the top.
DFB.de: Absolutely. Now you head to Bremen for a game against a team that are at the bottom of the league. You only have a few days to prepare for your last game of the year. What hopes do you have as you travel up north?
Hummels: That we can finally stop playing so differently away from home as we do at home. Our last few home games, when you consider that they were against Gladbach, Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg, were good. That was what people expect of us, apart from the fact that we didn’t score many goals. But away, we have been terrible this first half of the season. We want to try and get three points in Bremen, it doesn’t matter how, and with a lot of fighting spirit. We haven’t always been able to do that recently. Nevertheless, we want to win, like always.
DFB.de: Mr Hummels, what gives you hope that things will get considerably better after the winter break?
Hummels: Oh, I would be standing here for 20 minutes if I had to explain everything. The first thing is that I hope we can have a full squad for longer than five days. You can’t be consistent when everyone is always injured. The other thing is that we can get a lot better tactically because we can improve a lot. A lot of the team missed out on the preparations over the summer. But I am confident, even if you can’t say anything else, that after the winter break we can show that we haven’t shown what we can really do in the first half of the season.
