Kovac & Co. are pleased to have Karetsas on board and will give him time Coach Niko Kovac put his arm around Konstantinos Karetsas, then gave him a light pat and a friendly look as he made his way to the bench. The new signing had received spontaneous applause from the fans on several occasions. Only the crossbar prevented him from scoring a goal, and a strong save by the opposing goalkeeper (against Samuele Inacio) thwarted a direct assist. Nevertheless, he was involved in both of BVB’s goals in the match against Roma: Before Julian Ryerson’s goal to make it 1–2, he played the penultimate pass; on Serhou Guirassy’s goal to tie the game at 2–2, he was involved in a free-kick feint. “You could see how confident he is on the ball,” Kovac praised the 18-year-old, delighting in the fact that “it means a lot to have someone who can draw one or two defenders toward him, thereby freeing up others. And he has a really good eye.” Sporting director Ole Book also noted: “He showed a lot of promise, brought a lot of enthusiasm to the game, and was a threat in front of the goal. It was a good game for him.”
Karetsas is a solid short-term solution, no question. But he won’t be able to play 60 games for both the club and the national team. “We’ll all still be happy with him, but we also have to be very clear about this: He still needs time. He certainly won’t be able to play 90 minutes every third day – he doesn’t have the stamina for that,” said Kovac, adding: “And we also have to be careful not to push him into an injury. But if he plays the way he did today, then we’ll all be very happy.” Kovac was also “very happy” in the end with the two most recent friendlies against Arsenal (a 3-2 win) and AS Roma (a 2-2 draw). “Well, I’m very satisfied,” he stated for the record, and his facial expression said it all: “We created a lot of chances today, too. That increases our chances of winning games.” We need to work intensively on defensive stability– and that doesn’t just apply to the back line, where three potential starters – Emre Can, Waldemar Anton, and Nico Schlotterbeck – were unavailable. But everyone knows: that’s Kovacs’s core strength. Turning to a reporter with a smile, he said: “If we’d kept a clean sheet and won only 1–0, you would have said: ‘Yeah, Niko, that was another bust .’ But now it’s the other way around…”Boris Rupert