Not much is happening at Dynamo, either on offense or on defense

Dynamo with a Well-Coordinated Team

Coach Thomas Stamm fielded almost the exact same team that had played such a successful second half of the season last year. Only Nicolai Rapp, who came from Karlsruher SC, replaced Kofi Amoako—who had moved to Hamburger SV—in defensive midfield. In addition, Jakob Lemmer earned a spot in the starting lineup. Last season, he often had to share that spot with loan player Jason Ceka.

And Lemmer immediately set out to justify his selection. Just a few seconds in, the attacking player was blocked just before he could get a shot off. Later, he had two more chances, but the Nuremberg defense managed to thwart them.

But that was the extent of Dynamo’s attacking brilliance in the first half, which was dominated by Nuremberg’s star player, Zoma. Time and again, left winger Jonas Sterner broke free, exposing a problem Dynamo thought it had fixed in the second half of last season: the positioning in the back line was off, and double-teaming the ball-carrier happened too rarely. Since they conceded a rebound goal in stoppage time of the first half—with not a single opponent in sight to mark Zoma—Stamm’s expression visibly darkened.