Erling Haaland sat in all black in the stands on Sunday. Borussia Dortmund’s striker has also wore optimistic colors as a spectator, but this time he may have had an inkling that watching might make him sad. And really, he felt sad – not only because he, who seems to be addicted to scoring goals, couldn’t play – of all things in a game that developed into the highest-scoring duel in recent Bundesliga history.
This game against Bayer Leverkusen, it would have promised Haaland sweet moments. The Norwegian was particularly sad because he might have prevented Dortmund from losing this chasing duel 2:5 (1:3) without his muscle injury. Haaland had to watch a debacle helplessly and inactively.
“We basically have to show a completely different body language.”
BVB versus Bayer – in this duel there have been an average of five goals per game over the past five years. This time there were even seven, four in the first half hour alone. Haaland puffed out his cheeks in the stands, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Dortmund let themselves be humiliated in front of 10,000 fans, the gap to leaders Bayern Munich grew to nine points, the lead over third Leverkusen melted down to five points. The debate about the whims of the unstable BVB team is likely to become more heated.
“Sometimes we just don’t implement the guidelines,” scolded Dortmund’s captain Marco Reus after the game at Dazn. This self-declaration sounded explosive because it now raises questions about the authority of coach Marco Rose and the game intelligence of the team. Reus complained: “We were always a step too late, had a very bad offensive behavior and basically have to show a completely different body language.” None of these shortcomings are new, but the team captain rarely sounded as desperate as this time.
Dortmund defender Manuel Akanji scored Leverkusen’s 1-0 lead in the 10th minute when a shot, parried by goalkeeper Gregor Kobel, went in front of his knee and from there into the goal. Dortmund’s 1-1 equalizer was scored by Leverkusen defender Jeremy Frimpong in the 16th minute after a Julian Brandt free-kick – two own goals were the start of the hit festival.
“We have to be careful that it’s not one to there will be a big exchange of blows”, BVB coach Rose warned before the game – he knows his Pappenheimer. That didn’t help him on Sunday. Florian Wirtz gave Leverkusen a 2-1 lead in the 20th minute, a 16-meter free kick by Robert Andrich found his way into the corner goal in the 28th minute to make it 3:1 It was the early preliminary decision.
“Damn it again” – with this exclamation, Rose had asked his players in the press conference before the game to be more consistent in preventing goals. That didn’t work out anyway. Central defender Dan-Axel Zagadou, who played for the injured Mats Hummels, was unlucky before the first goal was conceded when he lost the ball to Leverkusen’s Patrik Schick. Jonathan Tah (4:1, 53rd) and Moussa Diaby (5:1, 87th) humiliated BVB with two more goals, which is why the final 2:5 through Steffen Tigges in the 89th minute was no relief for the battered Dortmunder soul meant.
“Now a lot will be pouring down on us again,” Rose suspected shortly after kick-off. This experience is not new for him, his team has suffered such setbacks again and again this season. But with every déjà vu, doubts about the reliability of the team grow. “Consistency is the magic word,” says Rose, “we have to work on that.”
The coach does not feel abandoned by the team. At least he denied this in the press conference. “I’m part of this group,” he said. But Rose obviously found it irritating “that we couldn’t get Leverkusen’s transition game under control, even though we had expressly identified this as their match plan beforehand”. Rose found the whistles of his own fans “more than understandable” given the result.
However, he did not want to fundamentally question Dortmund’s offensive style of play. “But talking about it and practicing it is one thing – it’s another thing to implement it in the game,” said Rose – and let doubts ring through. The football as the coach imagines it, BVB only succeeds in phases, never permanently.
For Leverkusen coach Gerardo Seoane, who is obviously in a good mood, the three points were particularly pleasant to “create a small lead backwards” in the top group of the table. Bayer are now five points behind fifth-placed SC Freiburg: “For our goal of finishing in the top four,” said Seoane, “that was an important win.”