Having scored twice as German champions Borussia Dortmund opened their defence with a 3-1 win over Hamburg, Germany winger Kevin Grosskreutz says his team are ready to give everything this season in order to retain the league crown.
Dortmund dominated last season's Bundesliga from the end of October onwards and picked up where they left off on Friday with an impressive display against Hamburg at Signal Iduna Park in front of a capacity 80,720 crowd.
Goals either side of half-time by Grosskreutz, plus a superb individual effort from 19-year-old prodigy Mario Goetze, sealed the three points.
Hamburg midfielder Robert Tesche headed home for a consolation goal 10 minutes from time, but Grosskreutz insisted the victory was just reward for his team's hard work in pre-season.
"We worked really hard during the preseason and (Dortmund coach) Jurgen Klopp really prepared us well for the opposition," he said.
"We implemented everything on the pitch which we had worked on in practice, we will continue to give it our all for the season ahead."
Big-spending Bayern Munich, who have splashed out over 40 million euros on the transfer market since last season, start their league season against Borussia Moenchengladbach on Sunday.
Having signed Germany's star goalkeeper Manuel Neuer and defender Jerome Boateng, Bayern are the favourites to capture this season's league title, says Dortmund's CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke.
"Bayern remain the number one favourites for me," he said.
"We can not rave too much about one game, next week the situation can look very different and we are keeping our feet firmly on the ground."
Likewise, Klopp said his side had only performed well for the first 70 minutes as Hamburg came back into the game in the last ten minutes.
"I was very happy with almost 70 minutes of the game, for the whole of the first half we showed we were patient enough to wait to find the spaces," he said.
"Then we got impatient and lost control and concentration.
"In the end, I felt it was closer than it should have been.
"Having said that, I am very satisfied with large parts of our game and don't want to overstate any criticism."
Source: AFP
