The aim had been to “dramatically improve the situation” in Frankfurt on Sunday night, according to Jürgen Klopp, and his club did indeed manage to alleviate one particular problem at least: the BVB board no longer have to worry about the fans’ support being counter-productive. As the dazed players stumbled over to the away section in the Commerzbank-Arena after yet another incongruous result, their eighth defeat of the season, they found that the love had run out. Jeers and anger hailed down on them in a manner unheard of in the Klopp era (since 2008).
“We are right in the relegation battle,” acknowledged sporting director Michael Zorc in the wake of the 2-0 disaster at the feet of Thomas Schaaf’s side. Bild am Sonntag, Sunday’s edition of the tabloid, had printed a photo of Mats Hummels with a dirty face before the game, under the headline “How rubbish do you feel fighting against the drop?”
It’s a dark and dank place, the Bundesliga basement, and Dortmund sense that the usual rules sadly apply to them there, too. The mood has hit rock bottom, in line with the position in the table (18th). Blame is much easier to come by than points at the moment. “We will carry on, regardless,” vowed Klopp, looking more disgusted with the malaise than ever.
The slump has been so incredulous that the natural instinct for neutrals is still to look at the 10-point gap to fourth sport and to expect Dortmund to wake up from their nightmare in due course. On social media, some have dubbed last year’s runners-up “the best 18th-placed Bundesliga team of all time”. It’s funny, because it’s undoubtedly true. For all their problems finding the net (14 goals in 13 games is not nearly good enough), and with conceding ridiculous goals (“more freak show material,” Klopp scoffed having witnessed the unwitting co-production of Matthias Ginter and Roman Weidenefeller for Haris Seferovic’s goal in the 2-0 defeat), Dortmund still don’t remotely look like team that should be anywhere near the wrong end of the table. But unlike a few weeks ago, their results don’t come across like gross miscarriages of justice, either.
There’s a staleness, a lack of collective oomph and individual genius, and none of the special application that have made them bigger than the sum of their parts so often before. “We have too many 50-50 games and don’t win enough of those either,” explained the injured captain Hummels in Bild. “That first leads to a loss of confidence, then to insecurity, then to nervousness.” Klopp, too, admitted that his team were too easily affected by negative events. On Sunday, they were 1-0 down within five minutes, as Alex Meier sprung the faulty offside trap. They spent the rest of the match chasing the lead in vain, missing a few good chances in the process.
Dortmund’s plight is made worse by the fact that this is a league without obvious whipping boys who you’d expect to go down, come what may. The smaller clubs and newly-promoted sides are all doing quite well, and the stricken (former) giants HSV, Werder and Stuttgart have all found new momentum by changing their manager. Such a radical step remains unthinkable at the Signal Iduna Park in the absence of a truly apocalyptic run of four more defeats in a row before the winter break – and perhaps even then. The board are firmly behind Klopp, as are the players. “The team know that we are responsible for this mess,” said Hummels. “We have to make it up to our coach.”
Dortmund will not go down. But inside the club, the disappointments of the recent fears have awakened other fears. There is, for the first time since the 47-year-old took over six years ago, a worry that the Klopp-Borussia partnership might be heading for an end before his contract expires in 2018, that he could feel that he’s come as far as possible with a squad that has suffered from injuries, high-profile defections and maybe from his ultra-demanding Jagdfussball (pack hunting football) as well.
Sources close to the manager still insist that his recent statements about a possible move to the Premier League were only hypothetical, meant in relation to a distant, future life after Dortmund. A big part of the current media speculation is also driven by third parties who are trying to cook up deals with English clubs without any mandate from Klopp. There’s no immediate desire for a change of scenery. The club, too, want him to stay, unequivocally.
But in football, bad runs have the capacity to render great certainties obsolete in the space of a few manic months. At the beginning of the campaign, nobody thought it was possible that Klopp would be asked whether he was planning to resign from the job 14 weeks later. He said no in Frankfurt (“I have a responsibility; I won’t step down unless the club come up with a better solution, which hasn’t happened yet”) but appeared too dejected to chide the journalist for this impertinent line of inquiry.
Without Marco Reus, the one genuine superstar who can rise above the mundane of his own volition, Klopp’s Dortmund look bogged down, knee-deep in doubt, unable to keep up the pace without which their game comes to very little. They’re even shorter on conviction than on points, that made the two defeats, at Arsenal and Frankfurt, so shocking this week.
Klopp’s frenzied idea football is tiring at the best of times, for himself and the team, and it has always fed on its own momentum in the past. Can his all-or-nothing approach survive a year of stagnation, regression even? That’s the very unsettling question the BVB board are suddenly forced to contemplate.
Talking points and results
• Haris Seferovic, the Swiss striker, dedicated his goal v Dortmund to Tugce A, a young woman who was tragically killed after an assault in Offenbach two weeks ago. The 22-year-old had intervened after two teenage girls had been molested outside a fast food restaurant and knocked unconscious by an unknown man. She died on Friday.
• He is not even 40, he has only spent a couple of years in the top flight and he’s far too modest to make a fuss. But “miracle maker” (Welt) Markus Weinzierl, the Augsburg coach, is quickly turning into one of the coaching superstars of the league. A 3-1 over HSV took the Bavarians to fourths spot in the table, their highest-ever position in the top flight. “The team are bursting with confidence due to the results in recent weeks,” he said on Saturday. That’s being too modest, though. Augsburg are a mini-Dortmund (in the good sense); they make up for a lack of individual quality through super-smart coaching and sensational levels of energy. It won’t be too long before Weinzierl will taste European football. With Augsburg, or elsewhere.
• The Hunter preyed three times on Mainz to take Schalke’s minds of the embarrassing 5-0 defeat by Chelsea – 4-1 the Royal Blues triumphed thanks to Klaas-Jan Huntelaar’s hat-trick. And with every bad result for neighbours Dortmund, Schalke’s customary see-saw campaign becomes more palpable.
• “I couldn’t play the way Köln played today, I wouldn’t be a coach [if my team did],” said Leverkusen boss Roger Schmidt after the 5-1 win in the derby. His colleague Peter Stöger felt that was a bit rich (pun intended) coming from their neighbours. “You can’t buy respect in the transfer market,” replied the Austrian, fairly miffed. Schmidt later insisted that he’d only commented on Köln’s negative tactics but Stöger had every right to feel aggrieved regardless: Leverkusen should have been 2-0 and a goal-keeper down inside 15 minutes. Bernd Leno, already on a yellow after a similar misdemeanour, had brought down Anthony Ujah in the box, only for ref Thorsten Kinhöfer to wave play on. “It was a fatal mistake,” said FC sporting director Jörg Schmadtke, “if you don’t send off Leno and award a penalty there, you don’t belong here [at this level]”.
• Huub Stevens is back! It was hard to tell whether the Dutchman’s tactical expertise and man-management tricks - he had kept his players guessing about the line-up - brought about the change of fortune for VfB Stuttgart or the sheer profligacy of SC Freiburg’s offensive department but the Swabians don’t mind either way. They’re off the bottom thanks to that 4-1 win - and hopeful that Stevens can prove an effective escapologist for the second year running.
Results: Freiburg 1-4 Stuttgart, Hertha 0-1 Bayern, Bremen 4-0 Paderborn, Hoffenheim 4-3 Hannover, Schalke 4-1 Mainz, Augsburg 3-1 HSV, Wolfsburg 1-0 Gladbach, Frankfurt 2-0 Dortmund, Leverkusen 5-1 Köln.
