Kovač impressed with Karetsas but insists youngster “still needs time”
· Yahoo Sports
Konstantinos Karetsas gave Dortmund fans an early glimpse of what they can expect from their new attacking talent in his first appearance for the club. The 18-year-old produced a moment of real quality, curling a superb left-footed effort into the far corner during the friendly against Arsenal to help BVB secure a 3-2 victory.
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However, Karetsas’ debut lasted just 45 minutes, with head coach Niko Kovač opting to replace him at half-time as part of his workload management.
“Kosta still needs time. He played 45 minutes today; that’s part of training management,” explained Kovač after the game. “We can see that he’s really good technically. That’s what every team needs.”
Dortmund managing director Lars Ricken was also full of praise for the new signing following his impressive first outing. Reflecting on Karetsas’ goal to make it 2-0, Ricken said: “Those are the kinds of situations where you could wake him up at 3 a.m. and he’d still put them away.”
Ricken was particularly impressed by how quickly Karetsas adapted despite having only trained with his new teammates for five days.
“I was particularly impressed by how alert he was after five days of training, how he participated in the game, how secure he was on the ball and how much he played for the team. I liked that even more. The half-time break was extremely valuable for him.”
Two other highly rated youngsters, Samuele Inácio and Joane Gadou, also got on the scoresheet as Dortmund’s young talents provided plenty of encouragement ahead of the new season.
For Kovač, however, the result itself was not the priority against Arsenal. The Dortmund boss instead focused on assessing his players and identifying areas for improvement.
“It’s about seeing certain things, and today there were many positive aspects. Certainly, there are still one or two things to correct, but we have made progress.”