If you thought things couldn’t get worse for Dortmund they did last Saturday, losing for the first time in twenty matches against Freiburg.
It’s been well documented how Dortmund’s season is unravelling before them. The BlackYellows started as serious title challengers to a supposedly ageing, under prepared and tired Bayern Munich after the Reds’ treble efforts of last season.
The way things have transpired are totally opposite to the hypothesis.
Tired, old Bayern have won five in a row in the league and just made it, comfortably, into the Club World Championship final against Mexico’s Tigres UANL tomorrow. Whilst youthful, exciting Dortmund have just succumbed to their third defeat in five matches in the league.
Since Dortmund’s win over second placed Leipzig, in what was a thoroughly deserved victory, the BlackYellows have gone draw with Mainz (currently in relegation), loss to Leverkusen away, loss to Gladbach away, win over Augsburg, then a loss against Freiburg last Saturday.
It was Freiburg coach Christian Streich’s first time in seventeen attempts at beating Dortmund – Streich is one of the league’s longest serving managers coming up to a decade running the Breisgau Brazilians.
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Dortmund’s season started to show warning signs in the second match against Augsburg which they lost 2-0, however the severity of the loss was papered over by Bayern losing 4-1 to Hoffenheim in what was a surprising matchday 2 of Bundesliga.
Things were back on track with five wins in six – the loss being to Bayern in the first Klassiker – and then came the events that led to, what’s looking more and more like a knee jerk reaction, in sacking Lucien Favre.
After matchday eight Dortmund went three games without a win finishing in a 5-1 loss to Stuttgart that led to Favre’s removal.
Questions around whether Favre had the charisma to get the best out of his young attack persisted and were decided to be addressed after the shocking loss to Stuttgart which preceded the young and inexperienced Edin Terzic taking over.
If you’ve got inexperience on the pitch why not have it on the touchline too? Right? Wrong.
Favre fired and Terzic coming in hasn’t inspired, hasn’t turned things around.
In the second section of the campaign, led by Terzic, Dortmund have picked up four wins in nine – Favre was six wins in eleven. Terzic has amassed 48 per cent of points on offer – Favre picked up 57 per cent.
If Dortmund keep going the way they are going they’re going to end up with 52 points, a massive step back compared to last season where they finished runners-up with 62 points.
The defeat to Freiburg doesn’t provide much hope that Dortmund will turn this around. The BlackYellows are one of the best with the ball to ground in the opposition’s final third however they do it too infrequently and in the rest of the field, particularly against Freiburg last Saturday, they were downright sloppy.
You couldn’t see his expression behind the mask but the posture of the chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke at the Schwarzwald-Stadion didn’t exude any encouragement. He’ll be concerned about a side who are genuinely looking at having to win the Champions League as their likiest path back into the competition next season.
Harry Jamshid Reporter Sports Pages 