Reus has had a direct hand in eight Bundesliga goals this term, despite featuring for just 930 minutes.
Reus has had a direct hand in eight Bundesliga goals this term, despite featuring for just 930 minutes.

Borussia Dortmund’s Marco Reus: “Hoffenheim game will be like a final!”

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Borussia Dortmund were held to a goalless draw against Cologne last Saturday, leaving Die Schwarzgelben a point behind Hoffenheim in third. Marco Reus put in a man-of-the-match performance against the Billy Goats and remains upbeat despite not finding the target at the SIGNAL IDUNA PARK last weekend.

bundesliga.com caught up with the FIFA 17 cover star after the game to get his thoughts on the race for automatic Champions League qualification, his place in the Germany national set-up, and what it felt like coming up against former BVB teammate Neven Subotic

Question: Marco Reus, do you ever expect a goalless game under Thomas Tuchel? He is considered to be an attacking coach…

Reus: If you analyse the game and look at the statistics, then we really don’t blame ourselves too much. The coach has also seen this. Of course we would have liked to get the three points and increase the distance between ourselves and Hoffenheim. We didn’t succeed in doing that, so now we have an absolute cup final for third place [Dortmund and Hoffenheim go head-to-head next Saturday]. For this we will have everyone ready!

Question: What did you make of the Dortmund fans’ reaction to Cologne’s Neven Subotic? They paid tribute to him after the final whistle.

Reus: Neven has earned that. He played with passion for Dortmund for many years and had excellent games for us. The applause he got was exactly what he deserved. We all enjoyed it a lot.

Question: How do you rate your own performance after being out injured for a long time?

Reus: I think I'm well on target after a long absence. I’ve now played some games, some for the whole 90 minutes. Now there is no Englische Woche so we have a bit of time to recover.

Question: Germany coach Joachim Löw has let you know that he’d like to have you at the Confederations Cup in the summer. What are your plans?

Reus: We have to wait and see. I will certainly speak to him and together we will decide how I can be most useful, and then we’ll decide what’s the best thing to do.

Watch: Marco Reus' journey

Question: You were the most potent attacking player with five shots on Cologne’s goal. How come you couldn’t find the target?

Reus: Power and precision - that was the decisive point. But that’s how it goes sometimes. Everyone agrees that we had a good game. Cologne had one, maybe two, chances in the first half. Otherwise we clearly dominated. Given the big game against Bayern Munich [Dortmund beat Bayern 3-2 in the DFB Cup semi-finals on Wednesday], we were in good condition. In the end, only the goals were missing.  

Question: The coach brought you together in the changing room after the game. What did he tell you?

Reus: He emphasised that we have nothing to feel bad about except the fact we couldn’t find the end result. We had a lot of possession, won most of our one-on-ones and created a lot of chances.

Dietmar Nolte reporting from Dortmund

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