Monday, July 7, 2008

Subotic Sees Action for Dortmund in Charity Tourney

Borussia Dortmund fans got their first good look at new defender Neven Subotic in Sunday's Hallelujah Cup, a charity tournament to raise funds to fight child poverty. The tournament consisting of the main Ruhr valley teams, namely Borussia Dortmund, MSV Duisburg, Rot-Weiss Essen and SG Wattenscheid 09 played in a round robin format of 50 minute matches (25 minutes per half).

Subotic got to spend time playing on the BVB back line next to Mats Hummels and Roman Weidenfeller for the first time in a game situation. Against RW-Essen, he had a defensive misunderstanding with Leonardo Dede in the 5th minute which nearly gave up a goal to Essen's Josef Kotula. Match reports indicate he had a few other shaky moments but he later created a dangerous scoring chance against Essen in the 18th minute. That said, all four teams reportedly looked out of form prior to their summer training camps.

Dortmund ended up finishing fourth in the four team tournament which was won by MSV Duisburg of the Second Bundesliga. The Borussia Dortmund team will now decamp on Wednesday to their training camp at Feusisberg near Lake Zürich in Switzerland. The team has five weeks to prepare for the its first competitive match, the DFB-Cup (German Cup) 1st round, which will be played either on August 4th or 5th. Friendly matches against Young Boys Bern and Galatasaray are also planned plus a July 22nd tilt with AS Roma.

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