“We need a series now!”, coach Edin Terzic had demanded ultimatum on the Sky microphone, shortly before his Borussia Dortmund footballers won safely 4-0 (1-0) at 1. FC Köln on Saturday afternoon. A week after the 3-0 win in Darmstadt, it was the second clear result in a row, but of course you can’t call it a series. It is at least a perfect start to the year for BVB, after the team did not win any of the last four Bundesliga games last year and was also eliminated from the DFB Cup.
Two wins against the bottom two teams in the Bundesliga table will not trigger euphoria in Dortmund; this requires further successes against Bochum, in Heidenheim and against Freiburg in the next league games. “The victory was an important step, but the road is still long,” said Terzic after the game, knowing full well that completely different opponents at a higher level would want to be defeated in order to qualify for the Champions League.
Curiously, the first of Dortmund’s four goals on Saturday by Donyell Malen resulted in the fans of 1. FC Köln raining gold coins. It was just the twelfth minute when the Ultras (twelfth man!) threw chocolate coins again in protest against the league’s decision to bring a solvent investor on board. And so golden coins sparkled on the lawn in the Cologne stadium while Dortmund, playing in bright yellow, celebrated an early goal that saved them from a rather poor first half. After a corner from Julian Brandt, Malen drove the ball through friend and foe into the goal.
“In terms of results, it was outstanding,” said goalkeeper Gregor Kobel
The hosts, initially surprisingly blessed with a lot of ball possession, were nonetheless a paragon of harmlessness. Of course, this was also due to the fact that three of the most dangerous players in Davie Selke, Luca Waldschmidt and Mark Uth were missing with injuries. In general, Cologne were only successful eleven times in the first half of the season, Selke contributed five goals and Waldschmidt two goals. Florian Kainz with three goals and Linton Maina with one goal were the only Cologne players on the pitch on Saturday who had already scored Bundesliga goals this season.
Of course, BVB also had to complain about a few failures. In addition to the injured Karim Adeyemi, Felix Nmecha and Julian Ryerson as well as Ramy Bensebaini and Sebastien Haller, who were seconded for the Africa Cup, central defender Mats Hummels (lack of training) and his last week’s replacement Emre Can (knee) were also out at short notice, so coach Terzic again fell back on Niklas Süle, whom he had (demonstratively?) ordered to the bench a week earlier.
“Niklas has a chance,” Tezic said, but Süle didn’t come out after the break. There was talk of back problems. The 19-year-old Hendry Blank from the second team celebrated his Bundesliga debut in the second half. He has been playing for BVB for four and a half years and came from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer of 2019.
However, it took a naive act from Cologne right-back Rasmus Carstensen in the 56th minute to finally relieve Dortmund’s improvised defense. Carstensen pulled Dortmund winger Sancho’s shirt so blatantly in the penalty area that he almost dropped too theatrically shortly before reaching the baseline, but still got the penalty. The moving images proved Carstensen’s crimes. Niclas Füllkrug converted the penalty in the 58th minute to make it 2-0, and when in the 61st minute Malen ran all alone towards the Cologne goal after a long ball from the new Dortmund left-back Ian Maatsen and scored his second goal to make it 3-0. This game was decided after a good hour. In the second minute of stoppage time, Youssoufa Moukoko only made it 4-0.
The Dortmunders were correspondingly relieved. “In terms of results, it was already outstanding,” said goalkeeper Gregor Kobel about two victories with 7-0 goals this year, “but it could certainly be better, more playful, more dominant.” Darmstadt and Cologne are not the ultimate benchmark, and the series demanded by coach Terzic still has to be achieved.