Borussia Dortmund would actually like to go into the long winter break of the World Cup with a good feeling - and then drags itself out of the last Bundesliga game of the year with a lot of worries. The giant's list of problems is gigantic. Once again.
The football experts, including the BVB entourage, agreed that the first three minutes were good. Opinions differed as to whether those first three minutes in Mönchengladbach's Borussia Park were really good. Not quite as far as Dortmund's chains in the fourth minute. Julian Brandt slipped, Emre Can was out of place, Raphael Guerreiro slept, Nico Schlotterbeck reacted too late - and thanks to world championship driver Jonas Hofmann, the hosts were in front.
To claim that it was the moment when Gladbach decided the game would be wrong. Which would be correct: The fourth minute was the moment that made the serious weaknesses of Dortmund the overriding issue. This Friday night, in the next two months. BVB drags itself into the World Cup break with an official fall depression.
The black and yellow giant, who desperately longs to finally get back up to his old size, always collapses when he wants to straighten his legs for the final stretch. It doesn't matter whether it's swimming in the Mittelland Canal or pony riding in the Borussia Park. At the end of a working week there are two defeats, a 0:2 at VfL Wolfsburg (on Tuesday) and a 2:4 (on Friday) at the other Borussia, with the foals, who have always been trivialized as ponies in Dortmund of the week at relegation candidates VfL Bochum were desperate (1:2). It's two defeats that shattered the dream of fighting at eye level with eternal rivals FC Bayern after the World Cup. And even if it was just a wild dream, it was one. Burst like a balloon in overly curious children's hands. So loud that the thunder echoed as far as the old beer town, where black and yellow is so present that the whole metropolis lives the rhythm of the club.
It now comes to a standstill. It's World Cup time. For some people it remains football time. For others, two months of renunciation are now beginning. Maybe with frustrated mulled wine(s) in the springtime pre-winter. It will be weeks of work-up for BVB. Coach Edin Terzic will ask himself how he can drive his team out of the eternal sloppiness. In defensive vigilance, in offensive consistency. And sports director Sebastian Kehl will again turn every stone and take a close look at him. Maybe one of them has got some moss on it? And isn't there an offer for the salary giants Nico Schulz, Emre Can, Thorgan Hazard or Donyell Malen on this long-forgotten piece of paper?
These four players alone were worth 106 million euros to the buyers, who had been acting solidly on the market for years. World Cup player Karim Adeyemi, who even the national coach did not attest to being in good shape, another 30 million euros. BVB has developed into one of the top players when it comes to burning money. The portal transfermarkt.de puts the current market value of the quartet at an optimistic 45 million euros. These are conditions that perhaps only exist in the league with Hertha BSC, which is always in need but is still in a semi-cheerful mood. Small consolation for black and yellow: In terms of sport, the situation is not as precarious as in the capital. Dortmund will have nothing to do with the fight to stay up. This has nothing to do with claim or reality. It looks like this: Borussia winters in sixth place. That, too, is far from my own claim. As Terzic once again confessed to DAZN. "It's a very disappointing evening. It's hard to explain."
He had wished for a restart "in the middle" in January. Right in the middle of the fight for the national title. So far it has been quite close at the top. Story. At least from Dortmund's point of view. This Friday evening the gap to FC Bayern is six points. But this mortgage will increase significantly again on Saturday. The Munich team is a guest at FC Schalke 04. Although coach Thomas Reis kissed their rivals awake, they don't believe that one of the biggest miracles in recent league history will happen in the top game, neither in Munich nor in Gelsenkirchen and certainly not in Dortmund. "Now we have a deficit that we have to make up for in January," analyzed Terzic. "We don't start from zero, but from minus."
Always the same thing at Borussia. In the summer, Dortmund win by a large margin on the transfer market. In the past, for example, with Niklas Süle (!), Nico Schlotterbeck (!) or Karim Adeyemi (!). You are buying the present and future of German football. They win in the transfer market, only to discover with a shock a few weeks later that the title will never appear on letterhead. They're still able to cope with the first setbacks, but the more certain they are of losing the championship in the next phase, the more nervous they get in the stands. Then boss Hans-Joachim Watzke, managing director Carsten Cramer, who is vying for the succession to the throne, and mentality consultant Matthias Sammer look a little more sparingly at the fate that is presented to them on the pitch. Later in the season, the unrest begins about the coach who was installed in the summer, but who should now finally make Jürgen Klopp forget.
Terzic was to become that man. They wanted to forget the chapters Thomas Tuchel, Peter Bosz, Peter Stöger, Lucien Favre, Marco Rose. Terzic, the man who once stood with them in the curve, should now inspire the curve. It was the longing. He was longing. But Terzic hardly managed anything in the first round. The defense is still just as big a mammoth project as the Emscher conversion once was. And the game forward is actually not one, concealed by the hype about Youssoufa Moukoko, by Jude Bellingham's aura, by Julian Brandt's brilliant individual actions. He now admitted: "We conceded easy goals through our own inability. That's really heavy baggage, that's a shitty feeling." The pressure on Terzic is increasing, he too has to improve.
The frustration that has built up over the years, the certainty that the next star will leave the club in the summer and the ongoing fight for places in the Champions League keep Dortmund on the edge of the abyss. Not at the Schalke abyss, not at the Hamburg abyss, but still with a view into the depths of the league average. A place from which it can go in all directions. The fall at the current abyss would not be deep at first, but at some point Borussia will not have another Sanchohallandbellingham to sell to the international competition with the highest bidder. But that is the prerequisite for being able to finance the rest of the squad.
It won't go on like this forever. Other clubs will establish themselves as contact points for young stars. The discovery of the year, Randal Kolo Muani, plays at Eintracht Frankfurt. Also because a club like Borussia Dortmund looks too threatening from the outside. For every breakthrough come too many failed transfers. The break with the financially successful transfer strategy under Michael Zorc in the ongoing fight for places in the premier class will be the task of BVB. Borussia has to find solutions in defensive midfield, in full-back and wing positions. Borussia must give itself a structure that cushions departures and at the same time enables a squad to be built up. The most important qualification in recent years starts at the beginning of the 2023/2024 season. Because from the 2024/2025 season, the premier class will block its bottleneck with even more money for the participating clubs. And so the qualification is long overdue. Anyone who doesn't play in the Champions League next year is less attractive. Logical.
How badly the small but fatal crash in the last game before Christmas gnaws at the players, nobody reveals that more than Jude Bellingham. The young Englishman, who inspires the imagination of Europe's great powers and is likely to soon become the most expensive export in German football history, has lost a little of his fascination these days and is attracting more and more attention with his mockery and minor shabbiness. Sometime in the 60s of the duel with Gladbach, he played a long pass into Nirvana down the left flank. He imagined there the once again weak mark. But he didn't do justice with this pass. The Dutchman shrugged while Bellingham grimaced, knelt and slammed his hands on the ground. From his point of view, the question of guilt was clearly answered. Once again.
The rise of the 19-year-old at BVB is fantastic, crazy, impressive. He has seized all power in midfield and wants to steer the bridge of the gigantic black and yellow tanker alone. He keeps forgetting the "we" and acts too much in the "I". He is not alone in this. The collective has also lifted the back four as the top priority. It has long since ceased to be a harmonious coexistence, but just a strange mess. Nico Schlotterbeck, a German World Cup hopeful, caught an evening in Mönchengladbach for which a new school grade would have to be invented, he defended so wildly. Mats Hummels, a German World Cup disappointment, was apparently so disappointed by Hansi Flick's rejection that he was somewhere with his frustrated thoughts, but mostly not with opponent Marcus Thuram. After all, he was visible, for example when protesting against a foul that was subsequently punished and prevented the 2:5. Emre Can, on the other hand, was not visible. He had his most present action after 59 minutes - when he was substituted.
BVB was already beaten. Coach Terzic didn't see a shot on goal in the second 45 minutes. However, the ntv.de sports editors observed one, namely that of Anthony Modeste after 85 minutes. It was, as the football experts, including the BVB entourage, agreed, one that should actually not be talked about. How about this clattering black and yellow giant who broke all his bones while pony riding this Friday evening.
(This article was first published on Saturday, November 12, 2022.)
