Opinion
Distortion of competition
Farce of a Bundesliga game: BVB intervened in the relegation battle in an unsportsmanlike manner
BVB completely went under with a B team in Mainz on Saturday and was already 3-0 behind after 25 minutes
© Uwe Anspach / DPA
There is nothing left for BVB to win in the league, but the Champions League final awaits. What Edin Terzic’s team delivered against Mainz on Saturday was still scandalously bad.
By Thomas Schumann
Maybe once professional football is dead, a suffocated money-making machine, this Saturday evening will be remembered. On the evening of May 11, 2024, when Borussia Dortmund played in… Mainz put on a vile performance that mocked all sportsmanship.
Not three days, but three weeks before the Champions League final against Real Madrid, coach Edin Terzic gave his best players a weekend off. From minute one, their representatives lay on their backs in Mainz and begged to be punished. What the Mainz players gratefully accepted.
Just a game? Just a few wasted points? Not at all. Because shrugging off this defeat was a shameless intervention in the relegation battle that Mainz’s competitors – Bochum, Union Berlin, Cologne – had to watch. Relegation battle also means battle for existence for those clubs affected; and for their employees, sometimes literally. There is no point here in diminishing the performance of Mainz 05, who on a good day could have defeated even Dortmund’s best. But it is important to call a spade a spade: that evening we saw a distortion of competition, the farce of a Bundesliga game.
The unsportsmanlike BVB should lose the final
However, European football, Uefa, is insatiably providing the template for such unsportsmanlike behavior. Not just four, but five or even six German clubs will be playing in the Champions League next year, after which Borussia Dortmund didn’t care what happened in Mainz. Fifth place is enough to make more money. Even if they started the season as runners-up and had actually declared the title, the German championship, as their goal.
The other title is now due – in three weeks at the Champions League final against Real Madrid in London. By then, the cynical calculation goes, no one in Germany will talk about the disgrace of Mainz anymore. And next week, at the last Bundesliga home game, Edin Terzic will include the bus driver, the physiotherapist and the press spokesman in the starting line-up.
I am a supporter of FC Schalke 04, so there has to be that much openness. Before this Saturday evening, I would have wished BVB a good match against Real Madrid. But now: unconditionally for Real. In the spirit of sport.
By the way: Real, who have long been Spanish champions, won the league game today. 4:0 away. Serious. Sporty. At the relegation candidate.