“Happiness guaranteed,” it says in the Bundesliga’s official English-language magazine. “For 24 years in a row, the Bundesliga has seen more goals than any other major league”. That’s a remarkable stat, no doubt, but can we be so sure about the emotional inference? Scoring goals is a zero-sum activity, if you think about it: one supporter’s happiness is another one’s hurt, guaranteed. All these goals and the often random assignment of points that go with them could just as easily be described as a misery machine.
The Bundesliga puts fans through the grinder and the very fact that it affords lesser sides the chance to entertain fairly realistic dreams of European football – you can’t win three games in a row without going close to a Champions League spot, as things stand –and regularly drags down supposedly big names into the relegation zone adds just another few layers of cruelty. Twelve or thirteen out of the 18 sides will end their campaign ruing missed chances and thwarted ambitions.
Everybody hurts, sometimes, but the discomfort is most keenly felt at Borussia Dortmund at the moment. The kingdom that Jürgen Klopp built has been reduced to a house of pain in the wake of five defeats in eight games this season. The BVB coach had thought that the lowest point had been reached with the 1-0 home defeat to Hamburger before the winter break but things got worse still on Saturday.
Dortmund didn’t at all play badly throughout large spells of their visit to Cologne but some defending of the indefensible kind allowed Kevin Vogt and then Simon Zoller to ramp up the pressure. (Ciro Immobile had scored the 1-1 equaliser). “We can call it a crisis,” said the sporting director Michael Zorc, “it’s the most difficult situation in recent years.” More worryingly still was Klopp’s assessment that Dortmund’s football had stopped making “sense” altogether. “I don’t have any clever comments at the moment,” he shrugged.
In line with modish calls for a “plan B”, Klopp’s high-energy pressing game has been identified as the source of all issues. However, the Dortmund maestro believes that the implementation by his personnel rather than the blue print as such is at fault. It’s true that no team in the Bundesliga can get away with such hair-raising individual mistakes, regardless of their system.
Klopp had threatened a “more extreme” version of his tactics at the start of the season but his players, for a variety of reasons, are unable to deliver in a league where many lesser sides have begun to fight his fabled counter-pressing with counter-pressing of their own. Dortmund’s inherently risky approach needs the whole team chasing the ball in unison and defenders winning key tackles. Captain Mats Hummels, however, has struggled to find form since the World Cup.
The centre-back played 20 misplaced passes to disrupt his own’s team build-up. “Imagine we wouldn’t have had these problems and direct our energy towards attack,” lamented Klopp. And Roman Weidenfeller, the most experienced player on the pitch at the Rhein-Energie-Stadion at 34 years of age, looked like a rookie when he failed to connect with cross ahead of Cologne’s second goal. There’s a suspicion that he’s perhaps trying a little too hard to emulate the fly-keeper style of Germany team-mate Manuel Neuer but that theory doesn’t account for Saturday’s faux-pas, which happened well inside the box.
Dortmund’s game with the ball has lacked direction of late, too. Ilkay Gündoğan’s return to the field of play after 14 months out with a back injury will help in that respect. The midfielder’s technical ability allows him to vary Dortmund’s pace and should make it easier for them to break down opposition who defend deep in numbers or attack the Dortmund supply lines high up the pitch. Gündoğan looked a little rusty in Cologne but can hopefully stay fit to ease the pressure in coming weeks.
Dortmund haven’t started his badly since 1987. They’re seven points off a Champions League spot. But this should be a blip, rather than the start of Klopp’s demise. The club’s backing for him is unequivocal and so far there are no indications that the dressing room has begun to doubt his expertise or authority. There’s too much quality on and off the pitch for them to stay in the doldrums much longer. The bigger worry isn’t so much that they could lose out on the top four – they won’t – but that their current struggles make the club as whole lose momentum.
Dortmund have been able to defy the naysayers and transfer gossip merchants since 2011 because they’ve kept going forward with a strong sense of purpose. That sense of unity will be tested as the noise, real and imagined, around the club and some key players will increase. The Bayern CEO, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, set the tone for things to come on Monday by confirming that his club would discuss the possible transfer of Marco Reus and then “come to a decision”. He also said that he didn’t like kicking people when they’re down, incidentally.
Talking Points:
• “Klopp 2.0” was supposed to be a complimentary moniker for the Bayer Leverkusen coach, Roger Schmidt. The 47-year-old’s pressing football seems to be suffering from the same defects as that of his role model, however. Serial incompetence at the back rendered Bayer’s 3-0 lead at half-time in Stuttgart into 3-3 draw that has left Schmidt’s side in sixth. “There’s a disconnect between effort and results,” said Süddeutsche Zeitung summing up Leverkusen’s propensity for throwing games away.
• Stuttgart, Hamburger (1-1 v Hoffenheim), Werder Bremen (lucky to get nil in the 6-0 defeat v Bayern) and Hertha Berlin (2-0 away defeat in Roberto Di Matteo’s debut on the Schalke bench), and maybe the Royal Blues themselves, are also experiencing a crisis in one form or the other but that is only to expected in this league. Six other names could well replace them after the next eight games.
• But where there’s so much pain, there must be a bit of happiness, too. Mainz (2-1 winners over Augsburg) remain unbeaten and in fourth spot under their new coach Kasper Hjulmand. Third-placed Hoffenheim, too, are yet to taste the bitter taste to defeat in season. But the biggest feel-good story of the moment comes courtesy of Lucien Favre’s Borussia Mönchengladbach. A 3-0 win at Hannover (with two goals from Max Kruse) ensured that the Foals are still riding high, undefeated, as Bayern’s sole challengers in second spot. Next week sees them taking on the league leaders in a game with a propensity to deliver exhibition football of the literal kind, if Max Eberl has his way. “We won’t put the tail between our legs,” the sporting director threatened, “Bayern will have to show it all against us”.
Results: Bayern Munich 6-0 Werder Bremen, Hannover 0-3 Borussia Mönchengladbach, Freiburg 1-2 Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen 3-3 Stuttgart, Mainz 2-1 Augsburg, Cologne 2-1 Dortmund, Schalke 2-0 Hertha Berlin, Hamburg 1-1 Hoffenheim, Paderborn 3-1- Frankfurt.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 8 | 19 | 20 |
| 2 | Borussia M'gladbach | 8 | 8 | 16 |
| 3 | Mainz | 8 | 5 | 14 |
| 4 | TSG Hoffenheim | 8 | 5 | 14 |
| 5 | Wolfsburg | 8 | 4 | 14 |
| 6 | Bayer Leverkusen | 8 | 2 | 13 |
| 7 | Paderborn | 8 | 0 | 12 |
| 8 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 8 | 0 | 12 |
| 9 | Schalke 04 | 8 | 1 | 11 |
| 10 | Hannover 96 | 8 | -6 | 10 |
| 11 | Cologne | 8 | -1 | 9 |
| 12 | Augsburg | 8 | -2 | 9 |
| 13 | Hertha Berlin | 8 | -5 | 8 |
| 14 | Borussia Dortmund | 8 | -4 | 7 |
| 15 | VfB Stuttgart | 8 | -6 | 6 |
| 16 | Hamburg | 8 | -6 | 6 |
| 17 | SC Freiburg | 8 | -4 | 5 |
| 18 | Werder Bremen | 8 | -12 | 4 |
