Dortmund Star Underlines Germany Ambitions Against Man City

Mats Hummels has further underlined his national team ambitions with an outstanding performance against Manchester City on Tuesday night. The Borussia Dortmund star was the man of the match as his side secured a 0-0 draw to advance to the round of the 16 of the UEFA Champions League.

“Thanks, it’s a nice little thing,” Hummels said when asked by Amazon Prime when asked about his man-of-the-match award trophy. It’s normally Jude’s,” Hummels added with a big smile, alluding to Dortmund’s star Jude Bellingham, who has been receiving all the attention in recent weeks.

“Defensively, we were really good,” Bellingham said to BT Sports. “I don’t think many teams keep clean sheets against Manchester City this season, so it’s really promising from that respect. There’s different things to take away from the game, but overall we’re happy.”

Dortmund was undoubtedly good in defense, and that was to a large part thanks to Hummels. Not a given that there was a certain expectation that the 33-year-old would soon be surplus material after Dortmund signed Nico Schlotterbeck for $22 million from Freiburg and Niklas Süle on a free transfer from Bayern Munich this summer.

Both were automatically considered ahead of Hummels in the new Dortmund hierarchy. But instead, Hummels took the new signings as a motivation; the 2014 World Cup winner spent extra time working out in the summer and now looks leaner and faster than last season, in which fitness concerns often slowed him down.

This season, Hummels has started in all but four games—two of those games he missed with a cold. Without Hummels, Dortmund lost 3-0 to RB Leipzig and 3-2 to Köln. That does not mean Hummels has been free of criticism as he was also on the pitch in Dortmund’s recent 2-0 defeat against high-flying Union Berlin.

Overall, however, the feeling has been that Schlotterbeck and Süle are complementing Hummels rather than replacing him. Against Man City, Hummels won 75% of his ground duels and 50% of his tackles. The 33-year-old also never seemed faced but whatever City threw at Dortmund and rightfully received praise from the international media.

The numbers in the game further underline what has been a good season for Hummels. According to Wyscout, the Dortmund defender is second in the Bundesliga with 80% won duels, just behind Mainz’s Maxim Leitsch 81.4%. Hummels is also second in aerial duels won (67.44%) just behind Werder’s Amos Pieper (73.17%).

But it is not just his defensive work that stood out. According to FBREF, Hummels ranks in the upper 93 percentile with 74.33 passes attempted per 90 minutes among all players in Europe’s top five leagues and even more impressive in the upper 91 percentile with 65.05 passes completed. His 0.14 through balls per 90 minutes rank him in the upper 95 percentile.

In other word, Hummels is not just once again a top defender but his passing game almost makes him like a quarterback. All those numbers are important attributes for German national team coach Hansi Flick and it is no surprise that Hummels is on the initial 44 player list the head coach has submitted to FIFA ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.

Being included on that list does not mean Hummels will ultimately be on the plane to the World Cup. But performances like the one against City will make it almost impossible for Flick to ignore the Dortmund defender.

Manuel Veth is the host of the Bundesliga Gegenpressing Podcast and the Area Manager USA at Transfermarkt. He has also been published in the Guardian, Newsweek, Howler, Pro Soccer USA, and several other outlets. Follow him on Twitter: @ManuelVeth