A fifth Bundesliga win in a row, a clean sheet and a difficult task negotiated with calm and poise. So Borussia Dortmund’s players celebrated playfully in front of the Yellow Wall because they know these moments are fleeting and to be enjoyed. Particularly in their situation.
There were worthy landmarks and mixed feelings all round after Friday night’s victory over Werder Bremen. Julian Brandt had marked his 300th Bundesliga game with the only goal of it, lifting his finish over the advancing Michael Zetterer following Emre Can’s razor-sharp pass. The architect, though, was in no particular mood to stand back and admire his work. “I’ll be happy when I’m in bed,” he told DAZN, and in a Champions League week it is worth recalling how far Dortmund have evolved from the spreaders of continental joy Jürgen Klopp guided to the 2013 final.
There were other contexts in which one might have been tempted to call this a laboured performance, on the back of Germany’s controversial – among the powerbrokers of the Bundesliga’s top clubs, at least – tour of the US. To minimise potential fatigue, BVB spent €100,000 on chartering a flight back from Philadelphia for Brandt, Mats Hummels, Niclas Füllkrug and Niklas Süle to get a day’s extra rest. For those familiar with the team’s efforts in recent times, this will not have seemed altogether necessary.
Gone is the crash, bang, wallop of Klopp’s days. Dortmund ceased to be a pressing team when Lucien Favre took over and, at least partly led by recruitment, they also haven’t been in either spell under Edin Terzić. This win over an obstinate Bremen was the sort potential champions need to grind out multiple times in a season and though it may not have made the hairs on the back of the neck stand up, it at least displayed the sort of patience for which Borussia Dortmund teams have not been famed over the years
The football is, as Terzić described it after Friday’s game, “less sexy, more successful” . The numbers back up the philosophy, for now at least. His side are still unbeaten and have 20 points after 8 games – only good enough for fourth place, but only two points from the summit. For comparison, BVB had 15 at the same stage last season.
What Terzić was really referring to, though, was not just this particular game but the contrast between the second half of last season, in which his team surged to the brink of the title, and the beginning of this which – despite the points haul and the unbeaten record – has been a convalescence of sorts after the trauma of letting the title slip back in May. In the opening games, the shadow of that implosion loomed large, especially in the dropping of points to lowly Bochum and Bundesliga novices Heidenheim. For the outside world, there were big doubts over Terzić and his future, particularly with Julian Nagelsmann having not yet taken the Germany job.
The club have always insisted that such short-term thinking was never shared internally, even in times of trouble and concern. Sporting director Sebastian Kehl told WAZ in an interview last week that he and CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke – who said he can imagine Terzić at the helm “for years” – see their cman as an evolving entity. “If a coach who is only 40 years old wasn’t able to develop further, then that would be a bad sign and things wouldn’t work,” he said. “Edin is able to make tough decisions. He shows courage when he makes changes in games at half-time. He wants to develop this team in all areas. I see every day that he is incredibly driven, incredibly ambitious. We were, and are, convinced of him and we have never had any doubts about that.”
The reality outside and inside the club is an important definition to make. Terzić’s tears in front of the Yellow Wall after they fell short against Mainz may have been unusual for a top-level coach, but at Signal Iduna Park, it is proof of his humanity and his belonging.
What is unanimous is that these are a big couple of weeks for Dortmund, starting on Wednesday night in Newcastle. BVB have just one point and no goals from their first two Champions League matches (and they rarely looked like scoring in those games), so some urgency is needed. At 34, Marco Reus has brought some spontaneity to the final third since returning to the XI while Felix Nmecha, the Manchester City youth product who has had a turbulent start to his BVB career since arriving from Wolfsburg in the summer, left big hints in the Bremen game that he is ready to provide the box-to-box presence they really need post-Jude Bellingham.
A visit to Frankfurt to face Eintrach, followed by the first Klassiker of the season against Bayern, come hot on the heels of theSt James’ Park trip. More judgement will follow. But Terzić is showing that being calm and emotionally invested are not mutually exclusive.
Borussia Dortmund 1-0 Werder Bremen, VfL Wolfsburg 1-2 Bayer Leverkusen, Darmstadt 1-3 RB Leipzig, Union Berlin 0-3 VfB Stuttgart, Hoffenheim 1-3 Eintracht Frankfurt, Freiburg 2-1 VfL Bochum, Mainz 1-3 Bayern Munich, Köln 3-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach, Heidenheim 2-5 Augsburg
Talking points
• Leverkusen remain on top with another Alex Grimaldo cracker snaring a win at Wolfsburg. Xabi Alonso showed faith in his squad, leaving Florian Wirtz on the bench for the first time this season. “We need that, with an intense period ahead of us,” he explained.
• Bayern Munich remain two points back in third after winning 3-1 at Mainz, Harry Kane nodding in the second. Yet the game was overshadowed by the continuing controversy over Noussair Mazraoui’s pro-Palestine social media posts with Alon Meyer, the president of German-Jewish sports association Makkabi Frankfurt, telling ZDF’s Das Aktuelle Sportstudio that Bayern’s failure to punish the right-back more heavily was of “damage to Bayern, the Bundesliga and our society.”
• Second-placed Stuttgart are on a run one better than Dortmund; they racked up a sixth straight league win with a 3-0 victory at Union Berlin, beating the side that relegated them in a 2019 playoff. Serhou Guirassy was at it again, heading VfB in front with his 14th of the season before suffering a hamstring injury that the club say will keep him out for “several weeks”. Union, for their part, have now lost an unprecedented eight in a row in all competitions, ahead of welcoming Napoli to the capital on Tuesday.
• Leipzig lie fifth, three points behind Dortmund, after Loïs Openda gave them the lead 44 seconds into their trip to Darmstadt (the season’s fastest Bundesliga goal), paving the way to a 3-1 win.
• Relief for Köln, who finally won their first game of the season in the derby with Borussia Mönchengladbach amidst extraordinary scenes. Kick-off was delayed by a torrent of pyro and the fan group Wilde Horde’s capo, Stephan Schell, making a speech to reiterate the fans’ support. “The message was that no matter what happens, they would be behind us for 90 minutes,” relayed captain Florian Kainz, who scored twice from the penalty spot in the 3-1 victory. Just how much it meant all round was clear, with coach Steffen Baumgart wiping tears from his eyes at full-time.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayer Leverkusen | 8 | 18 | 22 |
| 2 | Stuttgart | 8 | 17 | 21 |
| 3 | Bayern Munich | 8 | 19 | 20 |
| 4 | Borussia Dortmund | 8 | 9 | 20 |
| 5 | RB Leipzig | 8 | 12 | 17 |
| 6 | Hoffenheim | 8 | 3 | 15 |
| 7 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 8 | 3 | 13 |
| 8 | Freiburg | 8 | -5 | 13 |
| 9 | Wolfsburg | 8 | 0 | 12 |
| 10 | Augsburg | 8 | -4 | 8 |
| 11 | Heidenheim | 8 | -8 | 7 |
| 12 | Darmstadt | 8 | -9 | 7 |
| 13 | Borussia M'gladbach | 8 | -5 | 6 |
| 14 | Werder Bremen | 8 | -6 | 6 |
| 15 | Union Berlin | 8 | -6 | 6 |
| 16 | Cologne | 8 | -8 | 4 |
| 17 | VfL Bochum | 8 | -15 | 4 |
| 18 | Mainz | 8 | -15 | 2 |
