Zorc puts pressure on Dortmund

Posted Thursday, October 02, 2014 by Foxsports.com

Borussia Dortmund's director of sport Michael Zorc has turned up the heat on his side ahead of their trip to Anderlecht in the Champions League this Wednesday.

Saturday's 2-1 defeat in a local derby to Schalke was already their third reverse of the season in the Bundesliga. That is the same number of times they were beaten in the entire 2011/12 campaign - the last time they won the domestic title.

"We've got other problems right now without people talking about titles," Zorc told Germany's Bild newspaper.

"We want to beat Anderlecht first and then we're practically obliged to beat Hamburg in the Bundesliga."

The Champions League has at least provided Dortmund with some of their greatest joy in recent seasons.

After reaching the final, where they were beaten by arch Bundesliga rivals Bayern at Wembley in 2012, they had Real Madrid on the ropes in the quarter-finals in April as they almost recovered from a 3-0 defeat in the first leg, winning 2-0 at home to become the only side to beat the eventual winners.

Two weeks ago, they started their latest campaign with a convincing 2-0 win over Arsenal.

Anderlecht picked up a 1-1 draw at Galatasaray, yet their chairman Roger Vanden Stock said their performance was equally spectacular.

"It was our best European match in years," he said on uefa.com. "We now play some of the sort of football I always dreamed about, with a lot of skill and speed.

"Actually one should not compare, but our team sometimes makes me think about the youthful Ajax of (Johan) Cruyff, (Johan) Neeskens, (Barry) Hulshoff. They also had a lot of youngsters."

He is not getting carried away, though, with an arguably sterner test in store for his side at the Constant Vanden Stock stadium.

"I also stay wary of the match against Dortmund," he said. "Winning against a side with five World Cup winners would really be a super stunt."

Dortmund are without Marco Reus, but there could be a long-awaited return to the squad for Ilkay Gundogan, whose last appearance came over a year ago.

He is now back in full training and could be just the man to get the German side out of a rut.

Silvio Proto is back from suspension for Anderlecht and the Belgian team's regular number one should replace Davy Roef between the posts.