Fighting for a place in the Champions League in the Bundesliga, fighting for a place in the final of the Europa League, fighting for victory in the DFB Cup – for the footballers of lawn martial arts, pardon: lawn ball(!)sport Leipzig have The weeks of truth started badly on Monday evening in a guest appearance at Borussia Mönchengladbach with a 1:3 (1:2) defeat despite being outnumbered for half an hour.
The still best team of the second half of the season had recently lost a bit of its playful ease. It was the second defeat in a row in the Bundesliga. On Thursday, Leipzig will be visiting Glasgow Rangers and want to save their 1-0 lead from the semi-final first leg and thus into the final of the Europa League.
In Glasgow (but with the Celtics), the Gladbachers were also guests in October 2016, in the group phase of the Champions League. A pub owner in the city wanted to advertise the evening broadcast of the game on a slate in front of his pub and scribbled with chalk: “Celtics v. Mun, Monc, Meunch… a german team.” As a result, there were even fan scarves in Mönchengladbach with the diamond coat of arms and the words “A German Team”. In the meantime, however, the nice anecdote seems wistful to Gladbach fans, because guest appearances abroad are not in prospect and because Borussia have to fear that their name will soon no longer be known anywhere – that they are really just any German team.
Media reports before the game: Ginter leaves Gladbach and moves to his home club
The fans are therefore not only critical of the work of coach Adi Hütter, but also of the attitude of the players, who often did not fully exploit their potential. Shortly before the end of the season, the lower half of the table is not the region where Borussia actually feel comfortable, and nobody knows whether they will find their way back to warmer areas of the table next season. Hütter has therefore declared the remaining games of this season to be a character test. He explicitly wants to know “who tears himself apart to the end”. The problem with this: If you don’t tear yourself to the end, you may not be interested in staying in Gladbach. On Monday evening, the unforgiving banner of angry ultras read: “Hopefully we’ll get rid of the mercenaries among you soon.”
According to media reports, central defender Matthias Ginter, 28, whose contract is expiring and who had announced his departure long ago, is about to return to his hometown of Freiburg to his home club SC, where he would replace Nico Schlotterbeck, who is moving to Borussia Dortmund. Goalkeeper Yann Sommer, full-back Ramy Bensebaini and attackers Jonas Hofmann, Alassane Plea and Marcus Thuram could also leave Gladbach. The club may face a major upheaval in the summer. Sports director Roland Virkus indicates that not every wish from Gladbach will be fulfilled during the contract negotiations when he says: “It’s like Christmas.”
Gladbach’s Elvedi sees red, but Leipzig cannot use the majority
The game against Leipzig unexpectedly turned out to be a mess. In the first half, the guests played so disoriented as if they had a collective tinnitus. And in a way they had it too, because the Gladbach fans blew hundreds of whistles when the opponents had the ball – in protest against the RB construct. In the 17th minute, Breel Embolo put the hosts ahead. Ten minutes later, Leipzig’s Josko Gvardiol should have been sent off with yellow-red, but was spared by referee Martin Petersen and immediately replaced by Marcel Halstenberg by his coach Domenico Tedesco. In the 36th minute, Christopher Nkunku seemed to bring Leipzig into play with a 1-1 equalizer, but Gladbach’s Hofmann canceled it out with his 2-1 lead in first-half added time.
Double goalscorer: Gladbach’s Jonas Hofmann scored twice against Leipzig.
(Photo: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images)
With the recording of the second half, the Leipzig understandably became more intrusive. When Gladbach’s defense chief Nico Elvedi deliberately stopped the rushing Nkunku in the 63rd minute with a tackle, Petersen punished this as an emergency brake – red. Trouble now threatened, but despite being outnumbered, Hofmann completed a counterattack in the 77th minute to make it 3-1.