Borussia Dortmund Vs Werder Bremen [3–0] – Bundesliga 2025/2026: Second-Half Changes Decide A Deceptive Scoreline – Tactical Analysis

The usual order in the Bundesliga seems to have been restored after the first half of the 2025/2026 season.

Borussia Dortmund are back in second place behind FC Bayern, finding form again under Niko Kovač and climbing up the table.

The game that concluded the first half of the Bundesliga season for Dortmund was a home game against Werder Bremen on Tuesday evening.

It’s a busy time for Dortmund, just a couple of days after their start to the year against Eintracht Frankfurt, Kovač and his team now have to face their next opponent to round out the first 17 games.

For Werder Bremen and their coach Horst Steffen, it was actually the first game of the year after the short Christmas break, following their game against 1899 Hoffenheim, which had to be postponed due to weather-related issues.

For Werder, unlike Dortmund, their season has not been very good so far, especially at the end of 2025, the club from Northern Germany heavily struggled with consistency, failing to win any of their last five games.

In the end, Borussia Dortmund managed to beat Werder Bremen by three goals to nil, but while the result may look like the game went the expected course, that definitely was not the case.

In this tactical analysis, we will examine the tactics Horst Steffen employed to surprise Niko Kovač, how Borussia Dortmund adapted, and why the game ultimately unfolded as it did.

Borussia Dortmund Vs Werder Bremen Formations & Lineups

Niko Kovač likes to keep the base of his tactics simple and consistent; it was no wonder that he used his 3-4-2-1 formation once again.

Gregor Kobel started in goal, with a back-three consisting of Niklas Süle, Nico Schlotterbeck and Waldemar Anton in the centre started in front of him.

The double pivot consisted of Marcel Sabitzer and German international Felix Nmecha, with Brazilian Yan Couto playing as the right wingback and Julian Ryerson playing on the left.

Maximilian Bayer played as the right attacking midfielder, Carney Chukwuemeka played as the left attacking midfielder, and Fabio Silva got the start as striker over Serhou Guirassy on Tuesday.

For Horst Steffen, this game marked the second time in a row that the coach ditched his usual 4-2-3-1 formation and played with a 3-4-2-1 formation as well, mirroring what Kovač did.

While Steffen is not a huge fan of it, the players gathered around captain Marco Friedl just before the winter break and told the coaching staff that they preferred to go back to a back-three, a formation they have had a lot of success with under former coach Ole Werner.

Mio Backhaus started in goal, with Friedl as the central man in the back three, Karim Coulibaly to his left, and Amos Pieper to his right.

Yukinara Sugawara played as the right wingback, and Isaac Schmidt played as the left wingback, with Senne Lynen and Jens Stage forming the double-pivot in between them.

Romano Schmid started as the right attacking midfielder, Marco Grüll as his pendant on the left side, and the quick Justin Njinmah got the start in attack instead of newly signed Jovan Milosevic.

Werder Bremen Are Well Prepared

For Werder Bremen and Horst Steffen, opposition analysis has not been a strong point in the Bundesliga so far this season.

Often, their reads on their next opponent have not been ideal, and their game plans struggled to find the right adjustments to the playstyle of the opposing team while still holding their own values in high regard.

Thanks to the cancellation of their game against Hoffenheim on Saturday, Werder had a head start over Borussia Dortmund, allowing them to start the analysis sooner, and Steffen did not have to deal with recovery after an intense game, as Kovač did.

This game, Werder were very well prepared and had a clear plan to hurt Dortmund, and they executed it really well in the first phase, resulting in a lot of problems for their opponent.

Steffen prefers a playstyle centred on short passing and controlled build-up, and Werder used that to their advantage to start the game.

Often, the Werder defenders dropped back very deep into their own half, sometimes even into their own box, and started playing short passes there.

The two central midfielders heavily overloaded one side most of the time, giving the defenders additional passing options and creating a numerical advantage at first.

This attracted the press of Dortmund most of the time and dragged all of their players except the three centre-backs out of position.

Werder then tried to switch play through their backline with short passes, getting the ball to the far-sided centre-back, while still keeping the far-sided wing-back in a very flat position.

Then, Schmid dropped back out of the attacking line, right into the half-space in front of the now near-sided centre-back.

The Austrian midfielder never dropped back too close to his teammates, but rather positioned himself in the space between the forward-moving midfielders and the remaining backline.

Werder then often played vertical passes down the channel towards Schmid, with many players forward.

The majority of Dortmund’s players were played over in those situations and now had to somehow recover their position behind the ball.

With their man-orientation in the press, Schlotterbeck was often forced to defend forward in these situations and now had to sprint forward into midfield, breaking apart the backline as well.

Steffen and his team had a clear plan on how they wanted to attract the press and how they wanted to slice through it.

They were well prepared and managed to get Schmid involved often in the first 20 minutes of the game.

Werder even had a next step in their idea, and it worked very well, too.

Schmid, who is very good in those counterattacking situations when he is between the lines, quickly turned around Schlotterbeck and played another vertical pass to the two remaining attackers.

With Schlotterbeck being forced to defend forward, the left side of the Dortmund defence was now porous, and Werder attacked that space with runs by their fastest player, Njinmah.

Grüll moved into midfield in a diagonal way to receive the passes from Schmid, dragging Niklas Süle a couple of metres forward as well, and Njinmah now had the opportunity to make a run against Anton, who is way slower than him.

Grüll played a perfect pass into the path of the striker here, and Njinmah used his pace to beat Anton.

On the far side, Stage started to make a run from his own box, and with Sabitzer unable to follow him, he was wide open at the edge of the box.

Njinmah made a horrible decision by slowing down, taking on Anton, and then shooting himself, wasting a huge opportunity for no reason.

He should have just squared the ball.

Werder created three huge chances for their striker with this pattern of play, but failed to score a single goal.

Instead, after a corner, Stage lost track of Schlotterbeck, who gave Dortmund an early lead despite not being in the game at all up until that point.

Dortmund Struggle To Get A Grip

In the first half of the game, Werder were the more dominant team, and Dortmund really struggled to get into the game.

Despite the goal, none of Kovač’s ideas seemed to work, and Dortmund did not create any opportunities for themselves for the longest time.

They struggle heavily to find solutions against Werder’s block and press.

Dortmund tried to get more possession to control the game from the start, but they often struggled with finding solutions.

If defending in a block, Werder dropped the two attacking midfielders back a bit, creating a 5-4-1 shape and completely blocking the most important passing lanes for Dortmund, controlling the game from their defensive shape.

Werder did not drop back, afraid, at any point in the game, though, and they were always looking for triggers to press from line 2 into line 1, applying pressure with their attacking press.

Horst Steffen mirrored Kovač’s formation, which allowed Werder to play man coverage all across the field.

The three attackers were able to press the three centre-backs at all times, the wing-backs were put into 1-v-1 matchups on the wings, and the double-pivot of Werder covered the double-pivot of Dortmund.

In the first 30 minutes of the game, Dortmund struggled to find solutions in their direct 1-v-1 duels, which allowed Werder to get a couple of high regains, but Steffen’s men failed to convert them into clear chances, except once.

Still, Steffen’s team was incredibly aggressive, playing man coverage even in their backline.

The centre-back defended forward when Dortmund’s attacking midfielders tried to drop deep to create a numerical advantage.

In the situation pictured above, Coulibaly defends forward and then jumps the bad pass towards Beier to get an interception deep in Dortmund’s half, but Werder, again, failed to convert the recovery into a goal-scoring opportunity.

Dortmund, on the other hand, lacked solutions for the entire first half.

The one thing that worked was when Felix Nmecha dropped very deep, because the Werder midfielders were not following him aggressively enough into his own box.

Nmecha then played good lay-offs and kept the ball moving, allowing the centre-back to dribble forward a bit.

Nmecha then often stayed in the backline, creating a 4-v-3 numerical advantage in the first line of play for Dortmund, allowing them to break apart the man-orientation of Werder.

Playing plus one on the first line meant playing minus one everywhere else, and Dortmund struggled to progress the ball out of those situations.

At halftime, Dortmund had the lead, but Werder was the better team.

Dortmund Retaking Control

Unfortunately for Werder, their head start in preparation only got them so far, and they failed to capitalise on their advantage.

Instead, Kovač made some adjustments during halftime.

The press was now much less aggressive, Dortmund controlled Schmid more aggressively, and Süle, who had struggled heavily on the ball and in defending forward, was taken off.

From then on, Dortmund were still not playing a great game, but the Croatian coach managed to neutralise Werder’s biggest threats, and with three additional subs in the 67th minute, Kovač turned the game completely around, and Steffen had no answer.

Kovač subbed on Guirassy as a clear target man for the last 25 minutes and put a lot more pressure on Friedl in the backline with his new striker.

Marcel Sabitzer now played as the right attacking midfielder, and instead of providing width and depth like Beier, he dropped into the half-space a lot, creating problems for the young centre-back Coulibaly and overloading the centre, allowing Dortmund to play more vertical passes.

With their clever movements and Emre Can as a new centre-back with more quality on the ball, Dortmund now find vertical passes to their striker more often, getting behind Werder’s block.

From then on, Guirassy tried to lay the ball off to a more progressed midfield with Sabitzer and Nmecha overloading the areas around Guirassy.

Another additional sub was Daniel Svensson, who had way more ball security on the left side compared to Ryerson.

Dortmund clearly targeted the left side now, with Sabitzer heavily overloading the side by pushing into the centre from the right.

Kovač wanted to target Sugawara with his attacks, who heavily struggled against the ball in the last couple of games.

In the end, Sugawara and Lynen fail to put pressure on the ball, Stage positions himself really badly in this situation, and the ball ends up with Sabitzer in the centre, who beautifully finishes his opportunity to score the second goal for Dortmund.

Dortmund were in complete control by that point.

Werder failed to create a single chance in the second half, and after a horrid mistake by Pieper while building up, Guirassy scored the third goal to end the game.

Werder played a horrible second half, especially on the ball and with three back-breaking individual mistakes, there was just no shot for them to get back into the game.

Conclusion

Borussia Dortmund heavily struggled in the first half of the game, but with Niko Kovač’s pragmatic approach, they quickly adjusted in the second half and deservedly won the game in the end.

It was good to see the players staying calm under pressure for the Croatian coach and once again, him only to the most pragmatic thing, which worked really well, despite the football not being beautiful.

Horst Steffen, on the other hand, prepared his team well, but once the gap in preparation ended, the team looked completely lost, honestly.

It is not Steffen’s fault that Njinmah failed to convert his chances or that Stage defends a corner that badly, but in the end, it’s the sixth game in a row without a win for Steffen and his team.

Looking at the next four weeks and the six games Werder has to play in that timeframe, Werder really need to get going now, otherwise they’ll end up in the relegation battle sooner than later.

While they were good on the counter, Werder’s attacking play is straight-up horrible, and, combined with those mistakes against the ball, the rest of the season will be rather rough for the team, in my opinion.