BVB has no Kimmich: Dortmund’s historic dismantling in Amsterdam

BVB does not have a Kimmich
Dortmund’s historic dismantling in Amsterdam

By Stephan Uersfeld

Erling Haaland does not score, the defense can be rolled over. Ajax Amsterdam is in a frenzy, Borussia Dortmund surrenders. It’s the first big stage of the season. Marco Rose’s team failed because of this. It’s “a shitty evening” for the coach.

The Erling Haaland, courted by all the clubs in the world, stood at the center line and waited for the kick-off for the second half. Shortly before the break, he had missed a good chance. But everything was still possible for BVB. Once again, they wouldn’t let themselves be rolled over like that. That was impossible. Ajax had made the first half too dominant. Haaland looked around. He saw what was happening around him.

The audience in the Johan Cruyff Arena sang Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” loudly and if you looked closely you saw the Norwegian singing along with “every little thing gonna be alright”. A little later, the 21-year-old grabbed a long Hummels pass and hammered it on the goal of keeper Remko Pasveer, who is suddenly Ajax goalkeeper after a long tinkling through the Eredivisie and the Dutch second division.

Pasveer steered Haaland’s shot against the crossbar in the biggest game of his career to date. Next 2-0 for Amsterdam. The 37-year-old liked what he saw just too much. “Shortly before the break and shortly after the break I had two important saves,” he said after only the third Champions League game of his career. “Dortmund didn’t feel that they could come back into the game.” On the one hand, he was right, because BVB did not come back. But he was also wrong. On the evening when Ajax played the Bundesliga representative in the ground, BVB never got into the game.

Already 19 goals against

At the first big test of the season, coach Marco Rose’s team showed no resistance, lost themselves in the downfall and was intimidated by a passionately attacking opponent and the overwhelming pre-pandemic backdrop. “How do you take on such situations against a really strong opponent?” Asked the Dortmund coach after the game and answered directly: “Joshua Kimmich is freaking out and there is a fire under the roof.But instead of Kimmich there were other players, Dortmund players, and they had nothing to oppose Ajax except for a few relief attacks over Haaland. They didn’t even put pressure on the opponent, they left spaces at the end, gave escorts, like defender Emre Can in front of Antonys 3-0 or Sebastien Hallers 4-0. Conceded goals 18 and 19 in only eleven competitive games in the Bundesliga and Champions League. Remarkably bad.

“It wasn’t on the plan that we would go under like this,” said BVB captain Marco Reus after the game and Rose spoke of a defeat, “which shows us that we have to work very hard.” The hopelessly defeated Dortmunders did not even look for excuses after the dismantling in the Johan Cruyff Arena. They had never lost higher in a Champions League game.

Every now and then they conceded 0-3 bankruptcies, including against Rosenborg Trondheim in the desolate 1999/2000 season, in which the later BVB professional Jan Derek Sorensen scored a brace. Times haven’t changed. It is quite possible that a goalscorer will change sides in the coming year with Sebastien Haller and look for his luck in the Bundesliga again. But that didn’t count yesterday, just the most spectacular night since the beginning of the pandemic, which was initiated by the fans in the stadium with the memory of legendary coach Michel’s saying “Football is war”.

Amsterdam wins with its own identity

It seemed like the whole of Amsterdam was looking forward to this game. The first ten minutes disappeared under the pyro fog, which spread over the field for a long time and, at least for Dortmund, should never have disappeared. Because no sooner was the view clear than the people of Amsterdam, driven by the wild crowd, kept pushing. “It was fantastic,” said Daley Blind, who ended the game early with his brilliant 2-0 goal. “The fans were fully behind us again. That gave us a boost. Borussia is a team that plays very complex. It’s not easy to put them under constant pressure. I think we could do very well with our own identity. ” He meant, of course, the “voetbal total” for which Ajax has always wanted to stand and which is experiencing a renaissance under coach Erik ten Hag.

An identity that the Dortmunders completely missed during their first major test of the season. The team is still a major construction site in late October 2021, after a quarter of the current season. The long-term omissions in the transfer policy, which caused an imbalance in the squad, were again clearly noticeable. On good days, the individual class of offensive players wears BVB in Bundesliga games, which are Bundesliga games against teams with less individual class. On bad days, the failures in the defensive outside positions, where only the currently injured Raphael Guerreiro is international class, weigh heavily. It was the same in Amsterdam.

On the left, the pitiful ex-national player Nico Schulz fought with his self-confidence and the superior strength of Ajax and then Emre Can, who replaced Schulz one-on-one on this disastrous evening for Borussia and showed himself from his weakest side. He too had nothing to oppose the outstanding full-back Noussair Mazraoui and the 21-year-old Brazilian Antony. They overran Schulz, forcing Mats Hummels, who was struggling for form and fitness, to make mistakes again and again, which ultimately led to the first two goals. All of this also happened because new signing Donyell Malen neglected defensive work to the maximum and because BVB let themselves be lured out of defense time and again, acted amateurishly.

BVB is looking for identity

The dismantling in Amsterdam was a warning shot for BVB, which can now hardly win its Champions League group on its own, and urgently needs a win in the second leg so as not to worry about making it to the round of 16 until the last game in Lisbon have to. Much more is not possible internationally anyway. But all the talk about a Bundesliga title fight can now also fall silent. Bayern Munich doesn’t have Joshua Kimmich and Dortmund.

Bayern Munich has been the present of German football for ten years and Borussia Dortmund has always been just a promise. Nothing will change about that. But it didn’t play a big role that evening either. Except for Marco Rose. He also said: “The boys think the evening is just as shitty as we do. We have to deal with it self-critically and carry on. My team has character, they are great boys. We have to carry on and then still broadcast Borussia Dortmund.” Whatever that means.

They can’t carve a Kimmich. You have to work with what you have. You have to develop an identity. And for years they have not wanted to succeed. Or to put it another way: for years they have been measuring themselves against Bavaria and breaking because of it. An overarching idea is missing. But seldom is a downfall as historic as in Amsterdam. “Glorious Ajax humiliated the Germans in a way that Germans are almost never humiliated. Ajax crushed Borussia Dortmund with football of astonishing superiority,” wrote the Dutch newspaper “De Volkskrant”. Which is so wrong. Because Germans are otherwise only humiliated by Germans. More precisely: from Bayern Munich, for whom coach Erik ten Hag used to work.

Everything will be “alright” for Erling Haaland. He is a traveler at the beginning of a world career, but also one who always wants maximum success. If he doesn’t find him in Dortmund, he’ll find him somewhere else. Amsterdam keeper Pasveer can happily look towards the end of his career. He’s never seen a night like this before. It was the culmination of his career so far. Ajax had simply overrun Borussia Dortmund. For the first time since the last final season of the Dutch in 1995/1996, Ajax was able to win the first three games in a Champions League season. “Tonight was very pleasant for the fans,” said the goalkeeper.

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