It was the sort of evening after which crumbs of comfort had to be searched for, and Borussia Dortmund’s website did exactly that after Saturday’s defeat by Bayern Munich. “BVB edge stats despite defeat,” said the headline, before going on to explain how their team had the upper hand in terms of shots, corners and pass completion.
The players, it seemed, were in no mood for gentle consolation. “We weren’t ready to play,” said Christian Pulisic, one of the team’s few bright spots, after the game. “Bayern did whatever they wanted.” Gonzalo Castro was similarly frank: “We deserved to lose. Bayern scored at the right times, but it wasn’t until after the break that we had some intensity to our game.”
The most important numbers, Bayern’s 3-1 win that took them six points clear of Dortmund having trailed them by five just four matches ago, reminded us that on this occasion, the sentiment had been stronger than the (peripheral) statistics. At the start of the campaign, one presumes all involved with Dortmund would have snapped your hand off to have been offered the chance to go into the season’s firsKlassiker knowing a win would have taken them top of the table.
The current mood at the club meant that never felt a possibility. The recent return from injury of Raphaël Guerreiro, and the sight of Marco Reus resuming light training this week after a serious knee injury, should have created some positivity. Instead, Ruhr Nachrichten described the team as “in crisis mode,” pointing to a lack of leadership in the current fallow spell. “The fact that a young guy like Pulisic has to serve as a positive counter-example is significant,” it wrote. Pulisic, along with the goalkeeper Roman Bürki, was one of only two players who escaped the criticism of Michael Zorc after the game, with the sporting director lamenting that “we weren’t close enough to our opponents.”
Arjen Robben was certainly in the mood to make the most of that space on the Dortmund flanks, and he had the freedom of Westfalen to curl in a delightful opener – his 93rd Bundesliga goal for the club, taking him past Giovane Élber as Bayern’s leading foreign-born goalscorer in the competition. With his 34th birthday arriving in January, Robben looks as fresh as ever.
The Dutchman is also enjoying the change of leadership, as Jupp Heynckes continued his extraordinary 100% record after seven games in charge (if we’re not splitting hairs over the Pokal victory over Leipzig that was decided on penalties). This was never a given – if Robben is remembered for his glorious Champions League final winner at Wembley which crowned the treble season, he had his issues with Heynckes, to the extent that it seemed as if he was on the way out just months before that.
Now, Robben marvelled after the game at the speed with which the new-old coach has turned things around. It gave their opponents food for thought as well, with Dortmund’s flatness a growing concern. It would be unfair to blame Peter Bosz’s tactics entirely, though he has been much criticised of late. Although the defending was again poor, BVB were hardly immune from lapses at the back under Jürgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel.
It does appear, however, that the repetition of errors in recent weeks has badly shaken confidence. That, coupled with Bosz’s inflexibility – he sees less of a need for a plan B, and more of a need to do plan A “better” – makes one wonder how Dortmund might find their way out of this rut.
“It could be a good thing to get our minds away from Dortmund,” Pulisic suggested. The only problem is that, even in the international break, there isn’t much time for Bosz to go to work and most of his players will be away. They didn’t get much benefit from the last international break, either. In the seven games since October’s hiatus, they won once – against third-tier Magdeburg in the Pokal. They resume on Friday 17 November with a trip to a Stuttgart side who have dropped just two points at home so far.
That is a number worth retaining, perhaps, at least as much as the good chances spurned by Andriy Yarmolenko and Shinji Kagawa in the first half on Saturday. They were key moments, but so was the tackle that Sokratis got away with on Robert Lewandowski in the penalty box. As night drew in in the north-west, it was more about the feeling – primarily, the feeling that life is fun under Heynckes. “Football’s always fun when you win,” suggested Bayern’s goalkeeper Sven Ulreich. Dortmund could do with a bit of that in the near future if it’s not to be left to Leipzig alone to hang onto Bavarian coattails.
Talking points
• With 20 minutes to go at Red Bull Arena – in the round of games that preceded Der Klassiker – it looked as Leizpig might set Bayern up for the perfect weekend, as they trailed to a Jonathas goal for Hannover, Dortmund’s conquerors of last week. Instead, Ralph Hasenhüttl underlined how good he is becoming at juggling his resources across domestic and European action. Last season’s stars Emil Forsberg and Naby Keïta began on the bench but came on to make a big impact. The rest meant Forsberg in particular had plenty in the tank for a grandstand finish, playing a pass for Timo Werner to set up Yussuf Poulsen before contorting his body to superbly lay on Werner’s winner.
• If teams at the bottom just need the rub of the green, Hamburg got it on Saturday afternoon against Stuttgart. Firstly, the visitors went down to 10 men after 12 minutes, when Dortmund loanee Dzenis Burnic received a very harsh second yellow card – a decision described as “totally wrong” by his coach Hannes Wolf, who wondered why referee Guido Winkmann hadn’t consulted with VAR. If that wasn’t enough, HSV took the lead minutes later when Ron-Robert Zieler inexplicably let Aaron Hunt’s innocuous free-kick squirm through his grasp and into the goal. Credit is still due to a side that closed out their first win since August despite Daniel Ginczek’s leveller, via a Filip Kostic strike against his former club and a second in two games for the teenager Jann-Fiete Arp. It was Hamburg’s 500th home win in the Bundesliga.
• It’s now seven games, seven draws for Martin Schmidt since he arrived at Wolfsburg. His side really went through the wringer seeking a first win for him in a thriller against Hertha on Sunday. They were a goal down after 18 seconds, had two goals disallowed by VAR and missed a penalty yet still led at half-time, and were 3-2 up with seven minutes to go when the Hertha substitute Davie Selke grabbed a well-taken equaliser.
• What would Cologne give for a few of those goals? After a glorious 5-2 win over BATE Borisov on Thursday (their first European win since 1992), they were back to drawing blanks in a 3-0 home defeat to Hoffenheim, who ended a run of four winless games. It could have been a lot worse and despite the backing of the club – and supportive text messages from last season’s top scorer Anthony Modeste, badly missed since moving to China – coach Peter Stöger faces a battle to make it through the international break.
• Three cheers for Schalke, into the top four (and level on points with arch-rivals Dortmund) after Daniel Caligiuri’s streaky strike gave them a narrow win at Freiburg. Home coach Christian Streich is probably still feeling it today, having landed flush on his shoulder after being hit by a Benjamin Stambouli slide tackle. Augsburg and Leverkusen cancelled each other out with teenager Kevin Danso earning Manuel Baum’s side a point with a maiden Bundesliga goal.
• Mainz’s performance at Borussia Mönchengladbach was an accomplished one to earn them a point, but the most arresting moment involved a bizarre incident with their goalkeeper. Robin Zentner survived perhaps the greatest airshot of all time, controlling the ball and, as he sought to pick out a teammate, being completely oblivious when it drifted behind him. He continued to play without it, taking a swing at the penalty spot before belatedly realising what was up and recovering. “I saw something white out of the corner of my eye,” he said afterwards, “and I thought that was the ball, but then didn’t feel anything when I tried to kick it.” He was consoled by his teammates, between their giggles.
• Finally, Werder Bremen were the latest to be flattened by a late, late Eintracht Frankfurt goal, with Sébastian Haller’s finish hard on the visitors, who played with greater daring than in recent times under caretaker coach Florian Korfeldt. The question going into the fortnight off is who will be Bremen’s coach on the other side; “a classic firefighter”, as Weser Kurier put it, like Bruno Labbadia, or “a big picture” coach like Korfeldt?
Results: Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund 1-3 Bayern Munich, Freiburg 0-1 Schalke, RB Leipzig 2-1 Hannover 96, Borussia Mönchengladbach 1-1 Mainz, Hamburg 3-1 Stuttgart, Augsburg 1-1 Bayer Leverkusen, Wolfsburg 3-3 Hertha Berlin, Cologne 0-3 Hoffenheim
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 11 | 19 | 26 |
| 2 | RB Leipzig | 11 | 5 | 22 |
| 3 | Borussia Dortmund | 11 | 14 | 20 |
| 4 | Schalke 04 | 11 | 4 | 20 |
| 5 | TSG Hoffenheim | 11 | 6 | 19 |
| 6 | Hannover 96 | 11 | 4 | 18 |
| 7 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 11 | 2 | 18 |
| 8 | Borussia M'gladbach | 11 | -2 | 18 |
| 9 | Bayer Leverkusen | 11 | 7 | 16 |
| 10 | Augsburg | 11 | 5 | 16 |
| 11 | Hertha Berlin | 11 | -1 | 14 |
| 12 | VfB Stuttgart | 11 | -4 | 13 |
| 13 | Mainz | 11 | -5 | 12 |
| 14 | Wolfsburg | 11 | -3 | 11 |
| 15 | Hamburg | 11 | -8 | 10 |
| 16 | SC Freiburg | 11 | -15 | 8 |
| 17 | Werder Bremen | 11 | -10 | 5 |
| 18 | Cologne | 11 | -18 | 2 |
