Mats Hummels recently made brief appearances for Borussia Dortmund. Now he’s fit again. But his competition is doing well.
Mats Hummels made a lasting impression in just seven minutes. The Bundesliga derby between Borussia Dortmund and VfL Bochum(3:1) had not yet been decided until stoppage time when the central defender came on for Jadon Sancho. And the 35-year-old immediately showed an enormous presence, winning duels, clearing situations in the penalty area – and preventing worse with a spectacular tackle on Bochum’s Philipp Hofmann.
There were reasons why Hummels only came off the bench. The defender had previously been struggling with an infection. Edin Terzic’s decision to slowly acclimatize Hummels to match fitness seemed logical. However, the coach also left Hummels out of the subsequent Bundesliga match against 1. FC Heidenheim (0:0). He only played two minutes against SC Freiburg (3:0). That was even more surprising given that Hummels was BVB’s most stable outfield player in the first half of the season, when his performances fluctuated wildly.
His physical condition had nothing to do with the fact that Hummels had been sidelined recently. “Mats is extremely close, otherwise we wouldn’t have substituted him twice already,” said Terzic on Thursday ahead of the Bundesliga game away to VfL Wolfsburg (Saturday, 3.30pm/Sky). “Mats is doing very well in training, he’s back to his old self and has trained well in the last few days and also deserved to play from the start in the last game.”
According to Terzic, the fact that this did not happen had to do with Nico Schlotterbeck (24) and Niklas Süle (28), the other two central defenders. “We were very happy with their performances. We allowed very few goalscoring chances and only conceded one goal. That’s why we didn’t see any reason to change the formation,” explained Terzic, who nevertheless promised his veteran more playing time. “Of course we know that Mats, with his quality, his experience and his calmness, can continue to give this team a great deal.”
Dortmund are therefore also trying to persuade Hummels to extend his expiring contract once again. The international had announced last year that he would take until the spring to make his decision, as he did the previous year