Next weekend, BVB II will host promoted team Rot-Weiss Essen in the 3rd division at Signal Iduna Park. Defender Niklas Dams expects a Ruhrpott duel full of emotion.
Two match days are over in the new third league season. Borussia Dortmund’s second team had a rather mixed start with one draw and one defeat. Next weekend, promoted Rot-Weiss Essen will be the guests at Signal Iduna Park, a team that has had a similar start to Borussia Dortmund and that some of the players may still remember from the exciting duel for the Regionalliga championship in the 2020/21 season. First, however, the Revierklub will face 1. FC Saarbrücken away on Wednesday evening (7 pm).
BVB II veteran Niklas Dams expects the next difficult task after Wiesbaden, Ingolstadt and Saarbrücken: “It won’t get any easier. Not in Saarbrücken anyway. Rot-Weiss Essen are now level on points with us and have a similar goal difference. Anything can happen there.”
The promoted team from Essen earned its first point with a 2-2 draw at MSV Duisburg. After the derby fight, RWE’s next encounter with a Ruhr club is scheduled for Saturday (14:00) in Dortmund. The club from Hafenstraße was initially provided with 5,000 tickets for the away game. It remains to be seen how many fans will actually make their way to the stands. Dams is looking forward to a special duel: “Everyone knows what emotions are involved. There will be a bit more action than against Ingolstadt. There will be a lot of fire. In the next two games, we won’t go with less than 100 per cent. “
RWE derby in the Bundesliga temple
Due to a renovation at the Rote Erde stadium, BVB U23 have already been playing their home games at the adjacent Signal Iduna Park since the end of last season. Due to a delay in the work, the upcoming matches (the city of Dortmund expects at least another three months) will now also take place in the Bundesliga temple of the black and yellows.
Despite the unfamiliar and certainly welcome setting, Dams believes it is the wrong approach to make motivation on the field dependent on the venue: “Actually, something like that shouldn’t influence you. You can’t imagine that I’ll be more motivated there than somewhere else. Of course it’s more fun in a nice environment with lots of fans. Nevertheless, you don’t beat an opponent in passing. There has to be enough self-motivation so that you don’t draw your motivation from the stadium or the backdrop. “