“Is there a name for that thing where you’re afraid of something good happening ‘cause you’re afraid something bad’s gonna happen?” Carmen Berzatto.
The Bear’s fictional chef wouldn’t know it, but there is indeed such a word in Germany, because we have a word for everything, of course. It’s “Borussia-Dortmund-Fan”.
Sometimes, the BVB’s high points in the last decade felt like a prelude of subsequent setbacks. These ranged from the raids on the 2012 double winning team by Bayern Munich to Marco Rose’s unfulfilled promises to Thomas Tuchel, Lucien Favre and Marco Rose to a stirring draw with Bayern that was followed by a meek defeat to Union Berlin.
It’s fitting that Dortmund’s social media department are so on point: they’re a truly digital club, a combination of endless rows of 1s and 0s. And while no one can predict the exact order, you know that they’re roughly on as much as they’re off over the course of a season, sometimes even in the same game.
That logic led to their 5-0 win against the rudderless VfB Stuttgart. It was a very successful day in Signal Iduna Park’s Beef Kitchen. A very bad, disappointing 4-0 home defeat by Manchester CityTuesday night or a minimum of a regulation 2-1 defeat Eintracht Frankfurt (including Edin Terzic questioning his team’s mentality) on Saturday must be firmly on the cards.
The sensible course would be to free oneself from such madness and spend the time walking in the park or doing yoga instead, but there’s a reason why “fan” is short for fanatic and “tifo”, the Italian word for supporter, is the same as typhus, as in fever. Dortmund know what’s around the corner but are maybe past caring — Saturday was simply too joyful an occasion to worry too much about tomorrow.
“We’re all going home with a smile today,” said sporting director Sebastian Kehl after a one-sided demonstration of BVB’s considerable attacking qualities. It helped that Jude Bellingham scored an early goal, his first league goal of season. VfB also showed a lot of cohesion, which is not to be underestimated.
But Dortmund undoubtedly “worked hard to have this much fun playing football”, as Julian Brandt put it. It was an absolute joy to see them run, tackle and pass with such a sharp and focused sense of focus. Terzic especially enjoyed the fact that all goals were the product of fine combinations or, in the case of Niklas Sule’s volley for 2-0, for once from a well-executed set piece. It was also the defender’s first league goal of the season and a third player was soon off the mark, too: Gio Reyna, back in the starting line-up for the first time since aggravating a 14-month hamstring injury in April, curled a shot into the corner.
The 19-year old fell to the ground more out of relief than joy. After the final whistle, he told reporters movingly about doing five to six hours of physiotherapy a day throughout the summer months, “hard work behind the scenes that no one sees”, and about finding the the right balance between pushing himself and protecting his body. It’s vital that he’ll stay healthy, for his sake and the club, as Dortmund look a much different proposition with him on the pitch: more cohesive, more incisive.
No one’s better than Reyna receiving passes between the lines; in a side that routinely struggles to break down defences, he’s the best, most reliable conduit into the danger area they’ve had since Jadon Sancho departed.
🎥Three teens reached the goal. @BlackYellowA five-star performance against @VfB_int 👏
Check out the highlights👇 #Bundesliga | #MD11 pic.twitter.com/JY5TnlGwq0
— Bundesliga English (@Bundesliga_EN) October 22, 2022
Happily, the American’s comeback coincided with more uplifting news from fellow teenagers Bellingham — two goals, another star performance — and Youssoufa Moukoko, who scored his fourth goal of the campaign to become BVB’s leading marksman. The 17-year old has almost deposed veteran forward Anthony Modeste and may, at this rate make it to Qatar. Germany, too.
The question, as ever, is whether it’s realistic to rely on such a youthful trio to carry the Bundesliga’s second-wealthiest team. Recent history suggests we know the answer only too well: Kicker magazine’s presumably serious headline — “Dortmund manage the turnaround by beating Stuttgart heavily” — will roughly have the same sell-by date as this weekend’s heartfelt endorsements of Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign by assorted Conservative MPs. But come to think of it, the essence of being a Dortmund supporter perhaps isn’t so much the existentialist dread described by Berzatto, but its opposite: the realisation that fun times, however fleeting, must be enjoyed to the fullest, as if dawn never arrives.
At Borussia, they know what’s around the corner but they have a name — no, three names — for all that’s good happening right now: Jude, Youssoufa and Gio.
Over in Munich, the debate over the best way to compensate for Robert Lewandowski’s departure has taken an unexpected turn, with Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting suddenly leading the line effectively. Or did he? Julian Nagelsmann muddied the water by saying the 33-year-old was “more of a number 10 than a nine,” in recognition of his distribution and movement, but either way he scored a fourth goal in three games in Bayern’s routine 2-0 win at TSG Hoffenheim while Sadio Mane was pointedly left out of the starting XI for the second time this season.
Nagelsmann says that the forward from Senegal is currently feeling low on confidence. The team appears to have not been affected by his diminished impact, which speaks volumes about his blunted influence.
There was also a 3-3 oddity between Augsburg und elsewhere. RB Leipzig after the home side had taken a 3-0 lead, an edgy 2-0 win by SC Freiburg over 10-man Werder Bremen to keep Christian Streich’s side in the top three and a late Hertha BSC six-pointer over Schalke 04 (2-1) that had Hertha president Kay Bernstein shedding tears of relief in the Olympic stadium.
However, the biggest surprise was in Bochum where Union Berlin, league leaders, fell to a 2-1 loss. VfL was at the bottom of the league prior to the match, but somehow they beat Union Berlin by winning the crucial battles in midfield, and getting a little luck up front. Philipp Hofmann’s and Gerrit Hohmann’s goals, along with Milos Pantovic’s missed penalty after 15 successful attempts, set the stage for a win that will bring unexpected hope to the relegation battle.
“Bochum were simply better today,” Union manager Urs Fischer conceded, adding that his team were made to feel like one of Hannibal Lecter’s unfortunate dinner dates in Ruhrstadion. “They ate us up a little, we didn’t have the right answers,” the 56-year-old said.
(Top Photo: Edith Geuppert – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)
