Niko Kovac salutes work of Borussia Dortmund ‘big buddies’ Karim Adeyemi and Maximilian Beier: “They do everything together!”

Borussia Dortmund head coach Niko Kovac had an interesting way of praising young German attackers Karim Adeyemi and Maximilian Beier after Saturday’s Bundesliga win over Augsburg. A match defined in large part by 19-year-old Italian defender Luca Reggiani’s first Bundesliga goal also featured an excellent goal and plenty of slick combo play from the young German senior team capped tandem. 

Beier registered an assist on Adeyemi’s 13th-minute opening goal. In that particular case, Beier was somewhat lucky that a deflection off Keven Schlotterbeck helped the ball find Adeyemi’s feet. There were plenty of other instances during the match in which the pair could have combined to score another goal, however.

A stellar performance from the 23-year-old Beier and the 24-year-old Adeyemi means a great deal in the context of some of the confirmed BVB departures this week. Heavily capped German internationals Julian Brandt (29-years-old, 48 caps)and Niklas Süle (30-years-old, 49 caps) may be leaving, but a new generation of German talent remain in the Ruhrpott to help Dortmund compete.

Niko Kovac fields a question on Beier and Adeyemi

Kovac’s first question at the post-match press conference came from a Ruhr24 reporter, who wished to know how Kovac assessed the “double striker set” of Adeyemi and Beier. It actually looked as if, for the most part, Adeyemi spearheaded the attack alone whilst Beier provided support alongside Marcel Sabitzer on the second axis of a 3-4-3. Kovac answered anyway.

“I think they did great,” Kovac said. “They also play ‘big buddy’ to one another. They do everything together from early [in the morning] to late [in the evening]. I wanted to play with two strikers against Augsburg again. Three strikers would have left us unable to make more of an impact deep. That was my intention and it worked.“