Decent performance but no goals again

Dag Jenkins

Aug 13, 2023

3 min read

Season 2016-17

Pre Season Friendly

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Borussia Park, Mönchengladbach

Borussia Mönchengladbach-Lazio 0-0

Lazio hold Bundesliga side to stalemate but confirm problems in attack

This was Lazio's 7th summer friendly; Auronzo 19-0, Brazil Soccer Team 6-0, Padova 2-1, SPAL 1-1, Brighton 1-0 and Al-Shabab 0-0.

Lazio's Serie A season would start on August 21 away to Atalanta.

Borussia Mönchengladbach had finished 4th in the Bundesliga in 2015-16, under manager André Schubert. Their best league result was beating Bayern Munich 3-1. "Die Fohlen" had also taken part in the Champions League but were eliminated in the group stage with 1 win (Sevilla 4-2), 2 draws (Juventus 0-0, 1-1) and 3 defeats (Man City 1-2, 2-4 and Sevilla 0-3). The top scorer was Brazilian forward Raffael with 15 goals (13 in league).

This season the manager Schubert was confirmed. The main new players were: defenders Tobias Strobl (Hoffenheim) and Jannik Vestergaard (Werder Bremen), midfielders Christoph Kramer (Bayer Leverkusen) and László Bénes (Žilina) plus forward Josip Drmić (Hamburger SV).

Leaving were defenders Roel Brouwers (Roda JC) and Martin Hinteregger (Salzburg).

Borussia's first important appointment was on August 16 when they played Young Boys in the away leg of the Champions League play-offs. The Bundesliga kicked off on August 27 and Borussia MG faced Bayer Leverkusen at home. A week earlier on August 20 they would have a DFB-Pokal game (German Cup) away to Drochtersen Assel.

Lazio and Borussia MG had last met in the Europa League round of 32 in 2013 when Lazio won 5-3 on aggregate.

The match

A 3.30 pm start on a sunny day in Nordrhein-Westfalen attracted just over 20,000 to the stadium inaugurated in 2004.

Lazio were missing Felipe Anderson (at the Olympics) and Senad Lulic (injured) while the hosts mixed things up a bit due to their upcoming Champions League game and fielded some regulars while others would come on at various stages of the game.

The Germans started strongly and in the 4th minute a long range Ibrahima Traoré effort was saved by Federico Marchetti.

In the 6th minute Thorgan Hazard tried his luck but his shot flew well over the bar.

In the 18th minute Sergej Milinkovic-Savic put Ciro Immobile in front of Yann Sommer but the Neapolitan striker was just offside.

In the 22nd minute Lazio went close from a corner as Milinkovic-Savic jumped up but his header shaved the crossbar.

On the half hour mark Borussia hit the woodwork. André Hahn cut in from the left, getting away from Wesley Hoedt, and let loose a cracking shot which hit the crossbar.

Halftime came with the game goalless. Lazio defended well, were disciplined and intense but were a bit toothless up front.

For the second half the home side made five substitutions while Lazio remained unchanged.

In the 47th minute Keita Balde ran onto a through ball but was anticipated by Sommer who raced off his line.

In the 50th minute both sides had a chance. For Lazio, Immobile shot wide while for Borussia Raffael missed an open goal.

Lazio had several counterattacks but were imprecise in their last touch especially with Ricardo Kishna.

In the 63rd the Westphalians made five more changes in view of their imminent trip to Switzerland.

The game slowed down due to all the changes and Lazio too started to look to the bench making four replacements; in came Wallace, Patric, Filip Djordjevic and Danilo Cataldi while Hoedt, Lucas Biglia, Dušan Basta, and Kishna ended their afternoons.

More changes followed for Lazio including the debut of Moritz Leitner.

Both sides had difficulty creating anything dangerous and although Lazio ended the game on the attack the scoreline did not change. Full time 0-0.

A good training game for an hour then the multiple substitutions and the mind going to upcoming appointments took away intensity and motivations.

Lazio held their own against fitter opponents. The Biancocelesti were well organised, disciplined, with good rhythm and had looked sharper than against Al-Shabab but still had problems scoring (second consecutive goalless performance).

Lazio now had one last practice game against the Lazio U19s on August 18 and then it was Serie A time.

For Borussia it was only three days to Champions League.

Who played for Borussia Mönchengladbach

Sommer, Jantschke (63' Rütten), Christensen (46' Vestergaard), Strobl (46' Elvedi), Wendt (46' Johnson), Kramer (63' Dahoud), Hofmann (63' Ndenge, 87' Bénes), Traoré (46' Hermann), Hazard (46' Korb), Hahn (63' Schulz), Raffael (63' Sow, 87' Stindl)

Substitutes: Sippel

Manager: Schubert

Who played for Lazio

Marchetti, Basta (69' Patric), de Vrij (78' Prce), Hoedt (69' Wallace), Lukaku (78' Germoni), Parolo (71' Leitner), Biglia (69' Cataldi), Milinkovic-Savic (71' Lombardi), Kishna (69' Djordjevic), Immobile (78' Oikonomidis), Keita (71' Morrison)