As the first Borussia Dortmund (BVB) coach since Thomas Doll, Niko Kovac did not win in his debut. The 53 - year - old pinpointed the cause mainly to one aspect.

In Dortmund, especially, they understand very clearly at the moment that football is a results - oriented sport. Niko Kovac is not someone who doesn't know this - yet the new BVB coach tried to skirt a bit around the inevitable 1:2 final score against VfB Stuttgart in his debut.

"I think the guys gave it their all today," the 53 - year - old said, generally satisfied, into the Sky microphone. "Everyone gave 100 percent. Until the end." Kovac also said that he had seen things both with and without the ball that he had hoped to see and that he liked. Only in the decision - making in the penalty areas did things go wrong - and that was the crucial point.

"We controlled the game"

In some aspects, Dortmund's first appearance under Kovac against a very cautious and rather harmless VfB was at least decent to good. Borussia had a lot of possession, and in the end, they took 16 shots compared to 3 from Stuttgart, conceding little to their opponents. Kovac said he was satisfied with the "way" they played, and the only thing that was "not good" was the result. "We controlled the game. We just had to score the goal. We shouldn't have left the field as losers."

But in the decisive moments in the decisive areas, BVB simply offered too little. "Before the 0:1, we actually should have scored a clear - cut goal," Kovac said about a symbolic scene - just one minute before the opposing team scored. Karim Adeyemi burst through into the penalty area on the right, but from a very good position, he shot relatively wide. With consequences.

Shortly before that, the winger had a similar situation and played the ball into the middle, but no teammate reached it. "We didn't do the right thing in these situations," Kovac admitted. "We should have shot earlier or perhaps passed the ball instead if we ended up shooting." Exactly that is decision - making. And exactly that cost BVB points, not for the first time.

And how does the new Dortmund coach - the first since Thomas Doll in 2006/07 not to win his debut - plan to solve this problem? "Since we play every three or four days, we have to do a lot of video analysis," Kovac said - he "knows that there is a lot of work ahead of us."