BVB lead the way in Germany after 17 matches, but the Belgian star warns his team-mates they have not won anything yet <\/p>\n
Axel Witsel wants Borussia Dortmund to keep their focus in the second half of the Bundesliga season in order to complete a “special year”.<\/p>\n
Dortmund lead Bayern Munich by six points at the top of the table at the midway stage of the campaign as they aim to end the champions’ sequence of six consecutive titles.<\/p>\n
But star midfielder Witsel is keen to guard against complacency, believing there is still plenty of work to do if Dortmund are to triumph this term.<\/p>\n
Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n “I am convinced that it can be a special year for the fans, the club and for us players,” Witsel told Kicker. “There is a very special atmosphere around this club and you need that. We want to achieve something big.<\/p>\n “Now we have to tackle the second half of the season exactly as we did in the first half, one game after the other. Nothing else would bring us anything.”<\/p>\n Bayern coach Niko Kovac has promised to push Dortmund all the way, but Witsel prefers to concentrate on Dortmund’s performances.<\/p>\n “What else should Bayern say in their situation? We are well advised to focus only on ourselves,” he said.<\/p>\n Witsel has been one of the team’s standout performers this term, finally living up to the immense potential he showed during the earlier stages of his career.<\/p>\n Of his own personal form, Witsel added: “Physically, I’m fit and, thanks to the experience of the past few months, I’m also more mature and mentally stronger than before.<\/p>\n “I have never felt better on the pitch than I have this season.”<\/p>\n Dortmund return to Bundesliga action after the winter break on Saturday, taking in a trip to RB Leipzig, while\u00a0Bayern kick-start their 2019 with an away game against Hoffenheim on Friday.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BVB lead the way in Germany after 17 matches, but the Belgian star warns his team-mates they have not won anything yet Axel Witsel wants Borussia Dortmund to keep their focus in the second half of the Bundesliga season in order to complete a “special year”. Dortmund lead Bayern Munich by six points at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n