Niko Kovac wants Borussia Dortmund to move faster, pass cleaner and finish more chances when it faces Sabah FK on Tuesday. The coach said BVB must be sharper in the final third as it prepares for its third away match within six days.
The timing matters because Dortmund has taken only one point from its last three matches. It drew 2-2 with Werder Bremen after leading 2-0, lost 1-0 at FK Bodö/Glimt in Norway and then finished 0-0 at Union Berlin in the Bundesliga, a run that has left the team searching for a more convincing response without turning the situation into a crisis.
Kovac still framed Dortmund as the clear favorite. He said the side wants and must win, and his message was blunt: it needs to enter the box more often and close out more attacks. That is the sort of demand that sounds routine when a bigger club is expected to win, but it lands differently when the results have gone missing in three straight games.
Konstantinos Karetsas will not be part of that push. The 18-Jähriger missed the match because of a ligament injury in his foot, and Fábio Silva was likely to move into the team in his place. Kovac also said he had to weigh travel strain while deciding on the starting eleven, a reminder that the game is not only about form but about who still has enough in the legs to sustain it.
That is why Tuesday at 18.45 Uhr feels less like another fixture and more like a check on whether Dortmund can correct itself quickly enough to match its status. Kovac has already said the team has the quality to turn things around; now it has to show that the pace and precision he asked for are there when the whistle goes.
