Borussia Dortmund is starting the season with great ambitions. But most of the expensive newcomers are ill, injured or have not yet arrived. Promoted Werder Bremen wears salmon jerseys and plays BVB against the wall before the six historic minutes. Is Cristiano Ronaldo coming?
The signal box of the Deutsche Bahn got caught overnight. A storm paralyzed it. The country’s infrastructure is no longer up to par. There is chaos around Dortmund, which will also reach Borussia in the late afternoon. Within six minutes, Werder Bremen creates one of the most deserved miracles in football history. The Werder storm paralyzes the BVB defense and dreams of the championship. In stoppage time, the climber gets what he has earned over an entire game. The guests triumphed 3:2 over the completely dismayed top team from Dortmund.
When Oliver Burke took a low pass in the 95th minute, passed the ailing Nico Schlotterbeck and defeated BVB keeper Gregor Kobel with a powerful ball, the Bremen substitutes stormed towards the north stand. That’s where the visiting fans are. They want to demolish the stadium. On the other hand, Borussia collapse. Led by midfielder Leonardo Bittencourt, the players dance through the Westfalenstadion and can’t believe their luck. The Bremen fans sing: “We will be German champions!”. It’s not quite that far yet.
Three joker goals from the 89th minute ensure great madness. Lee Buchanan magics the ball into the corner, Niklas Schmidt wins a head duel against the once again completely indisposed Emre Can and then comes Burke, once considered a huge talent at RB Leipzig and whom Bremen dug up at Sheffield United this summer . Since then, the Scot has thanked him with late goals. “It’s my signature,” says Burke, a man with an odd hairdo, smiling. He already scored against Stuttgart in overtime last week. But this is a bit wilder.
“There are many who haven’t even checked what happened yet,” says defender Amos Pieper, almost apologetically for the North German sobriety that blows through the mixed zone of the Westfalenstadion. Marco Reus is available to answer questions a few meters from him. The national player repeatedly uses the words “shock” and “disappointing” and tries to find an explanation. “Maybe we’ve pushed our luck over the past few weeks. It’s frustrating,” he says.
Borussia Dortmund started the season with two victories against Leverkusen and Freiburg, but they did need a lot of luck. Against Leverkusen she saves keeper Kobel, in Freiburg SCF goalkeeper Mark Flekken, whose shot slips through his fingers. Little goes together against Bremen either. The guests are braver, more organized and more interested. Nevertheless, it is somehow enough to make it 2-0 for BVB in the meantime. Goals from the largely inconspicuous Julian Brandt before the break and from Raphael Guerreiro in the 77th minute turned the course of the game upside down in the Westfalenstadion.
BVB never gets control of the game, which is dominated by highly defending Bremen. They find space behind Dortmund’s defence, get some good shots and are stunned to be down 2-0 with 13 minutes to go. “Because it wasn’t a good performance from us, the defeat is deserved. Nevertheless, it is of course brutally annoying,” says BVB coach Edin Terzic, who suffered a defeat for the first time during his second term in Dortmund.
Before the start of the game he decides to field Marius Wolf, Julian Brandt and Jamie Bynoe-Gittens in the starting XI, after 16 minutes he loses stabilizer Mo Dahoud through injury. Can comes and it goes there. “Mo was a key factor in the first few minutes because he was always able to find the full-backs,” says Terzic: “Mo is always able to stay on the ball in very tight situations.”
This is not the case with Can, who keeps making mistakes after mistakes. So Dortmund gives the game out of hand. First the top team loses control, and very late on the scoreboard too. Beforehand, a constant murmur with loud resentment at Brandt’s numerous ball losses conveys how thin the patience of the Dortmund fans is this season.
“Over 90 minutes,” says Bremen coach Werner, the victory is “not undeserved” and he has to keep answering questions about those six minutes: “After 1-2, hope germinated, after 2-2 you try to keep your emotions in order to steer, but after the 3:2 there was of course no holding back.” On the bench and in the stands. Everywhere they fall on top of each other and can hardly believe their luck. It’s six minutes that revive the belief in a great Werder future.
Long before the game begins, images from the past flicker across the stadium, which is still quite sparsely filled. The damage to the signal box means that spectators are delayed in arriving. “The railway threw a spanner in the works for us today,” commented stadium announcer Norbert Dickel. Later it will be Bremen who put a big spanner in the works in Dortmund. The stadium director plays the memories of days long gone. BVB against Werder 2002. Koller at the far post, Ewerthon pushes the ball over the line. Dortmund is champion. But in the next few years, the SVW will take over the pursuit of Bayern. Unforgotten 2004. Thomas Schaaf, who salutes from the cockpit after winning the double in Berlin with the Werder flag. The Bremen team stays at the top for a few more years, but then, after too many transfer flops, they have to let it go.
Borussia Dortmund takes over again, reaches a high plateau close to the national top. From there they dare to venture upwards again and again. But even that has become less in recent years. Bremen, on the other hand, is out of breath. They descend little by little, sometimes daring to step forward, but never reaching the European ranks again. In 2021 it will be over. You have to give up, down to the second division.
For a long time now, the game has actually not been a duel at eye level. So far in August 2022, Borussia Dortmund can ignore the begging and pleading of superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. According to reports throughout the week, he definitely wants to go to BVB, definitely to the Westfalenstadion. It should be his last chance for another year in the Champions League. But BVB is timid, doesn’t want to and has no use for him. Although CR7 is highly praised at the Westfalenstadion and the rumors will probably last until the last day of the transfer window.
The Dortmund reality is called Anthony Modeste. The former Cologne player replaced the sick Sébastien Haller at short notice a few weeks ago. But Modeste is still missing the bond. In the game against Bremen he has twelve ball contacts, some of which are headers in his own penalty area. Youssoufa Moukoko came late and even had a chance to make it 3-1 in the wild final phase. The storm question remains unresolved. How so many things remain unclear. It’s again one of those Dortmund days that have blocked the club for almost a decade.
Werder Bremen has not only committed itself to financial recovery since relegation in 2021. They dream of the return of Max Kruse, they dream of a creative player who feeds the offensive at least a little with ideas. they have no money. But coincidence brought Ole Werner to the coaching bench last fall. Predecessor Markus Anfang has problems legally proving his vaccination status. Bremen threatens to sink into chaos, but gradually crawls its way towards promotion. They can’t handle big money. In Dortmund they then dominate with Bittencourt, 30-year-old Anthony Jung and newcomer Jens Stage. That works too. Because they have an idea and the euphoria for advancement carries them.
“We are an ordinary climber,” says Werner after standing in the catacombs of the Westfalenstadion. Marco Reus gets into a car and disappears. The Bremen bus struggles through the traffic. Nothing else works at Dortmund Central Station. The whole city is paralyzed. BVB continues to struggle with old problems. The Borussia remain one of the great mysteries of the league. Cristiano Ronaldo is being discussed in the city’s bars.
