Lucien Favre Defends Dortmund's Record in Second Half of Bundesliga Season After Missing Title

Borussia Dortmund manager Lucien Favre insists that Borussia Dortmund can be happy with their season despite missing out on the Bundesliga title.

Favre was speaking after his side beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 2-0 at Borussia-Park on Saturday but still failed to win the league thanks to Bayern Munich's win over Eintracht Frankfurt. 

​Dortmund headed into the final day needing to win against Mönchengladbach and for ​Bayern to lose to Frankfurt in order to win the league. Dortmund got ​the result that they needed, but Bayern ​beat Frankfurt 5-1 to secure the title and prolong Dortmund's wait for a ​Bundesliga triumph.

The 2011/12 champions were on top of the Bundesliga for large parts of the season and despite not winning the league, Favre insisted that Dortmund can look back at their season with pride. 

Speaking in his post-match press conference (as quoted by Dortmund's ​official website), he said: "Ultimately we're a little disappointed. There was some hope when it was 1-1 between Bayern and Frankfurt. All in all, we only just fell short. We can be very satisfied with this season. Nobody expected us to get 76 points."

Dortmund led Bayern by six points at the end of December but four draws and three losses in the league in 2019, including a damaging 5-0 defeat to their title rivals, meant that they missed out on the title by two points.

Favre insisted that Dortmund can be pleased with their work this season despite missing the opportunity win their first league title since 2012.

"We picked up 34 points in the second half of the season. That's not as bad as one might think. All in all, it adds up to 76 points. We shouldn't forget that in the first half of the season we rode our luck to the max and turned a lot of games round. It was a very good season with lots of exciting games, both home and away. We can be very satisfied with this season, even if we're a little disappointed at the moment."