Borussia Dortmund’s attack has caught the eye of international football as of late given that they have two of the best young attackers in the world in Jadon Sancho and Erling Braut Haaland. However, before the arrival of Haaland, it was Sancho and Dortmund’s captain Marco Reus who had the limelight. The latter has had an underrated season as he has contributed to an incredible goal every 94 minutes in the Bundesliga but injuries once again curtailed a fantastic first half of the season as he missed the last 14 games due to a muscle injury.
The German international has been an integral member of Lucien Favre’s side and this tactical analysis will look at his skill set and impact on Dortmund’s attack when he has featured.
Goalscoring
One of Reus’ best attributes has always been his ability to get into goalscoring positions and score from them. He has managed to score a great tally of 11 goals in 1502 minutes, which equates to a goal every 137 minutes, which is a prolific return in the context of Reus’ role. Reus has never been the one to be in a position to have an elite level of chances at a very high rate given that he often played as an attacking midfielder or out wide and was also Dortmund’s source of creativity for a lot of years. The same rings true this season and this can be seen by his expected goals. His xG per game was 0.54, which was enough to be ranked 13th in the Bundesliga out of players who played a minimum of 1000 minutes. While this number is not at an elite level, for reference Erling Haaland has 0.75 xG per 90, it is still a great number given his position as an attacking midfielder.
In terms of other statistical numbers for finishing and scoring that we can look at, Reus does pretty well. He averages around 2.81 shots per game per Understat, which is a slight improvement from the season prior but since he is 31, this number won’t increase much higher than this in upcoming seasons, and hasn’t done so for the last couple of seasons too. His conversion rate is fantastic as he scores 23% of his shots that he takes, which is well above average, but it should be noted that conversion rates aren’t a great predictor of future scoring. It does provide some context on his finishing quality this season though, and the quality of finishing can be backed by his expected goals compared to the goals he scored. As mentioned before, he scored 11 but on 9.1 xG, which means that Reus is outperforming xG 1.21 times, a value that can be deemed as sustainable.
Looking at his shot map, it comes as little surprise how he manages to get good quality chances. Reus picks up great shot locations with most of his shots being inside the box and centrally. This is a key reason for his goal tally this campaign given that the closer to the goal, the higher the chance of scoring. It also illustrates that he does not shoot from a specific area in the box, which shines a light on his versatility as an attacker but his confidence on both feet, something that makes him so difficult to stop. The shots outside of the box are mostly free-kicks but his shot technique is fantastic, which is how more than half of his shots from range at least hit the target.
Creativity
Given that Reus was a winger earlier in his career, he was often asked to create chances for his teammates. As he became older and moved to a more central position, he continued to carry on this burden for Dortmund. The German international would have been regarded as one of the best attackers in the world had he not been injured consistently as he was able to have incredible output not only in scoring but creating too.
