On a night like Tuesday, Borussia Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park really is every bit as special as they say, maybe even more so. It is a formidable tidal wave of unfettered emotion, impossible to fairly explain if you aren’t in it and futile to resist if you are.
After the drunken revelry of that Champions League win over Atlético Madrid a reality check might have been needed, and my goodness this was it. True, they came close to being the first team to beat Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga this season, but Josip Stanisic’s header in the seventh minute of stoppage time salvaged a draw for the newly crowned champions, with Xabi Alonso releasing his inner Mourinho to charge down the touchline and join the bundle in front of the celebrating away fans.
This is what Alonso’s team does. Stanisic’s goal was Leverkusen’s 20th scored in the 86th minute or later this season. Their surge is something you know is coming but which you can rarely stop, talking of tidal waves. They have become inevitable.
Everything Dortmund did in comparison to Leverkusen was so approximate. It was a case study of why the team which came within a whisker of taking last year’s Bundesliga title away from Bayern Munich is so far from the standards set by the Leverkusen team which did so this season, with plenty of room to spare. A case study in the difference between playing with purpose and playing with a purpose. There is plenty of huff and puff to Dortmund, but it is difficult to identify a strategy.
“It wasn’t what we planned,” bemoaned Edin Terzic, who also talked of his team being “too passive.” As Mats Hummels yelled and hammered the ball back up towards the halfway line after Stanisic’s goal the frustration was palpable, and far too familiar. This encounter against uncommonly good opponents had a lot in common with the rest of Dortmund’s unsatisfying campaign.
So Dortmund carry on, not quite consequence free from the chaos that envelops them but spared the worst of it. Dropping points to these imperious champions was not as costly as it might have been, despite fourth-placed RB Leipzig winning again, with the Bundesliga’s overwhelmingly successful European week making the harvest of a fifth Champions League place for next season a probability rather than a possibility. BVB are virtually guaranteed a top-five finish, ahead of next week’s ostensibly crucial trip to face Leipzig.
We should not underestimate the power of Dortmund’s Champions League achievements, for better or for worse. Reaching the semi-final, and nights like the vanquishing of Atlético, cannot and should not be disregarded. They are what the fans live and breathe for. What they must not be is a placebo, a reason to ignore everything that needs fixing, the firework display that makes you forget the garden fence is falling down and that there is a hole in the attic roof. The danger is that these moments at Dortmund are so powerful that you forget the faults.
Change will happen at board level, certainly, before CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke’s scheduled departure in 2025. The imminent return of Sven Mislintat is supposed to bring clarity to the picture, but really just poses further questions. Even disregarding BVB’s mixed record of success when bringing back former employees on the playing staff, there is little in the former sporting director’s recent work (particularly his fraught spell at Ajax) to suggest that he is the right person to bring canniness and direction to Dortmund.
The reports in the regional press directly after the Atléti game, inevitably, suggested that a managerial change for next season was now no longer a subject of discussion but Dortmund have to decide what they want to be. Do they give in to the emotion that has become their brand, or are they willing to rethink and partially reinvent themselves, while still keeping firm hold of their sense of self? The latter approach is what has allowed Leverkusen to achieve what they have this season.
A club with a significantly smaller budget than Dortmund has produced a team that even after an exacting week at home and abroad, even with no orthodox striker on the pitch and their star player Florian Wirtz on the bench, dominated in Dortmund. There is ambition but crucially, there is also clarity of thought. If the next few weeks are big for Dortmund and for Terzic, the summer is arguably even bigger.
Eintracht Frankfurt 3-1 Augsburg
Wolfsburg 1-0 Bochum
Cologne 0-2 Darmstadt
Hoffenheim 4-3 Borussia Mönchengladbach
Heidenheim 1-2 RB Leipzig
Union Berlin 1-5 Bayern Munich
Werder Bremen 2-1 Stuttgart
Borussia Dortmund 1-1 Bayer Leverkusen
Freiburg 1-1 Mainz
Talking points
Bayern, boosted by their Champions League win over Arsenal in midweek, seem full of the joys of spring just a week after ceding their title, overcoming Union Berlin’s initial resistance to run out 5-1 winners at a ground which has given them problems in the past. There is still uncertainty despite Julian Nagelsmann ruling himself out of a return to stick with Germany (“a choice of the heart”). Director of sport Max Eberl insisted after Saturday’s win that Bayern “are on the final straight” to appointing Thomas Tuchel’s succesor.
Leipzig have now won six of their last seven Bundesliga games (drawing the other) to hold the advantage going into Saturday’s meeting with Dortmund. Loïs Openda’s late winner took him to 23 Bundesliga goals for the season, some achievement for a player whose club-record €43m price tag made many question the club’s decision-making last summer.
Wolfsburg finally got a win under Ralph Hasenhüttl with Jonas Wind’s crafty finish beating Bochum for only their second win this calendar year, and their first at home since November, taking them four points above the visitors, who are in the relegation playoff place. Asked about leaving big-money signings like Lovro Majer and Joakim Mæhle out, Hasenhüttl pointed to the strength of the collective. “We may not have the most beautiful trees,” he said, “but when you put them together, it is the most beautiful forest.”
If it’s relief for Die Wölfe, things look bleak for Cologne after a miserable 2-0 home defeat to wooden-spooners Darmstadt, and they now sit five points adrift of the relative safety of the relegation playoff place. This loss felt like a tipping point, with fans turning against managing director Christian Keller for the first time. Keller admitted on Sunday’s Doppelpass on Sport1 that the squad would be “significantly reduced” in the event of relegation despite an ongoing transfer ban.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayer Leverkusen | 30 | 55 | 80 |
| 2 | Bayern Munich | 30 | 50 | 66 |
| 3 | Stuttgart | 30 | 32 | 63 |
| 4 | RB Leipzig | 30 | 35 | 59 |
| 5 | Borussia Dortmund | 30 | 23 | 57 |
| 6 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 30 | 6 | 45 |
| 7 | Freiburg | 30 | -11 | 40 |
| 8 | Augsburg | 30 | -1 | 39 |
| 9 | Hoffenheim | 30 | -7 | 39 |
| 10 | Heidenheim | 30 | -9 | 34 |
| 11 | Werder Bremen | 30 | -12 | 34 |
| 12 | Borussia M'gladbach | 30 | -7 | 31 |
| 13 | Wolfsburg | 30 | -15 | 31 |
| 14 | Union Berlin | 30 | -24 | 29 |
| 15 | Mainz | 30 | -17 | 27 |
| 16 | VfL Bochum | 30 | -26 | 27 |
| 17 | Cologne | 30 | -30 | 22 |
| 18 | Darmstadt | 30 | -42 | 17 |
