Waldemar Anton: The Key Defender in Dortmund's Success
Waldemar Anton doesn’t do drama. He just wins his duels – and, increasingly, his arguments.
“It actually happens in every game that we shout at each other once,” he admitted recently about his on-pitch relationship with Serhou Guirassy. The two have known each other for years, long enough to fire straight from the hip during 90 minutes and laugh about it later. On Saturday night in Stuttgart, Anton had fresh material.
With Borussia Dortmund grinding out a 1-0 win over VfB, Guirassy ambled off in the 74th minute, taking his time to reach the touchline. Under the new rules, that delay meant Fabio Silva had to wait 60 seconds before he could come on. Dortmund were briefly down to ten men. Niko Kovac fumed on the sideline at his striker’s sluggish exit. Anton, close by, will not have missed the chance to make his feelings clear.
The centre-back had other battles to fight. Back at his old club, where the boos rain down every time he touches the ball after his abrupt switch to Dortmund two years ago, the 30-year-old walked into a hostile arena and walked out unbroken. Again. Stuttgart could not find a way past him. Nor can many others at the moment.
The backbone of Kovac’s BVB
Since Kovac arrived, Dortmund’s defenders have not been allowed to hide. The coach has drilled, demanded, and reshaped the back line. The result is brutal in its simplicity: they do not concede.
Last season, BVB already boasted the best defence in the league with just 34 goals against. Four matchdays into the new campaign, they have three clean sheets and sit joint top of the defensive table with Bayern Munich, each side having let in only two goals.
Anton is right at the heart of that transformation. After a messy first year in black and yellow – two muscle fibre tears in quick succession sidelined him longer than ever before in his career – he has grown into what Kovac once called a “total constant” at BVB. The coach rarely misses a chance to underline his importance, even if Anton shrugs off labels like “defensive leader”.
Before the Champions League opener against Villarreal, Kovac laid it out plainly. Anton, he said, is a leader who lives football around the clock, drives his team-mates, never gives up and throws everything into the collective cause. For the coach, he is a role model. For Dortmund, he has become non-negotiable.
Ironman numbers, iron mentality
The praise is not just emotional. The numbers are ruthless.
Last season, Anton delivered an outstanding campaign and often looked more secure than his partner Nico Schlotterbeck, who missed the start of this year through injury. Kovac dubbed him the “Ironman”, and the data backs that up: out of 47 competitive matches in 2025/26, Anton was unavailable for only three. In the league and cup, he played all 35 games from first whistle to last.
Even a World Cup with Germany did not slow him. While many Dortmund players enjoyed a full pre-season, Anton had barely any preparation time. It has not shown. The 15-cap international has simply carried his form straight into the new year, as if the break never happened.
His value is not only in turning up. He leads by example – with discipline, with mentality, with resilience. He does not play for the cameras. He plays to win his duels, to shut down space, to suffocate attacks. He defends without fuss but with a relentless edge, a warrior’s approach wrapped in a calm exterior.
His anticipation now stands out as a genuine elite trait. Since Mats Hummels, no one at BVB has stepped out and defended on the front foot as cleverly and consistently as Anton.
Best of the German bunch?
The data tells the same story as the eye test. Anton ranks among the Bundesliga’s best in duel success, aerial wins, interceptions and clearances. He anchors Dortmund’s new-found stability and has become one of the defining faces of the Kovac revival.
On current form, there is no German centre-back performing better.
That inevitably drags the conversation towards the national team. Jürgen Klopp wants to rebuild Germany on a rock-solid defensive base. For that blueprint, Anton looks almost tailor-made: vast experience, top physical and mental condition, clear communication, and a natural organiser who guides younger players through games. He ticks almost every box Klopp has sketched for the future DFB side.
Long term, Schlotterbeck’s left foot and his diagonal passing might offer a different profile and, in certain systems, a slight edge. And at Bayern Munich, Jonathan Tah remains the established number one in the centre-back hierarchy.
But the way Anton is playing, leaving him out of any serious discussion about Germany’s defensive core feels increasingly artificial.
Quiet figure, loud impact
Anton will not sell himself. He never has. Kovac has described him as “very calm, very modest, very humble”, a player who pushes his own ego aside and puts the team first. That attitude fits perfectly with the role he now occupies in Dortmund: the silent constant in a side that has rediscovered its bite.
The competition for places with Germany will play out over the coming months, shaped by form, fitness and Klopp’s tactical tweaks. At BVB, though, the picture is already clear.
In a team sitting top of the table and building its identity around defensive steel, Waldemar Anton is no longer battling for his place.
Everyone else is battling to dislodge him.
