25 game days have been played in the Bundesliga. FC Bayern is not top of the table. There is only one question left: Can Borussia Dortmund really become German champions? Yes, because they lead the table before the trip to Munich on April 1st, says ntv.de and answers urgent questions.
Edin Terzić wasn’t prepared for that. Now the BVB coach should give a speech. After the 6-1 win against 1. FC Köln, he wanted to be at the opening of the Nordstadtliga in his old home, Dortmund’s Nordstadt. And now he suddenly stood there and talked. About how important it is to have mutual respect and what role football can play in this. Wearing a hoodie, he stood there next to the head of the league, Mirza Demirovic, and spoke to the players of the Dortmund street league. They listened to him. Because Terzić speaks their language and because it was important to him.
Terzić can hardly do anything wrong at the moment anyway. He has brought BVB back to life, also because the club seems to have succeeded in the much-cited balancing act between Borsigplatz and Shanghai for the first time. In recent years, the Bundesliga club has worn itself out in the search for meaning between commercialization and homeland and has become a symbol of the lack of prospects in the Bundesliga. Too slow for the left lane, too fast for the right lane.
Behind the super-giants FC Bayern Munich, Dortmund had become an international beacon, but it did not shine as brightly as BVB boss Hans-Joachim Watzke had imagined. New lighthouse keepers kept coming, but couldn’t fix it. The Tuchels, the Favres, the Roses weren’t happy in the Westfalenstadion. Then Terzić came along and knew exactly what to do.
It took a while for all the switches to be flipped. BVB was still at the end in November 2022, even qualifying for the Champions League seemed in danger. But then BVB started a run. 28 points out of a possible 30 after the World Cup break, individual players became a team and Terzić watches over everything , returns. Just a few hours later, the whole of Dortmund was dreaming of the championship. Even if the fans have not yet made any concrete plans for a possible rush to the pitch after the last game against FSV Mainz 05. And is a championship even realistic? As every month, ntv.de answers the most pressing questions about BVB for you, dear readers.
Will BVB become German champions now?
Patience. Patience. We’ll get to that.
To put it another way: does BVB suddenly have a mentality?
Exactly one month ago there was one of the famous Knallhart announcements exactly at this point. There was only one answer to the unspeakable question about the end of the mentality debate: “It will be continued until the word mentality no longer has to be used. Not in a negative, but also not in a positive sense firmly burned into Dortmund’s DNA again.” That has now happened and the debate has actually wandered south. Because there they finally want to “bring mentality and greed back onto the pitch,” as sporting director Hasan Salihamidžić scolded into the microphone after the bankruptcy in Leverkusen.
So FC Bayern Munich is now having a mentality debate?
Yes. And the series master is also busy with underground work. Coach Julian Nagelsmann is really shocked. A mole goes around and digs up the stories that only FC Bayern tell. It is deeply shocking that the Munich coach is now opening such a barrel. Moles are expressly protected by law. It is therefore forbidden to even disturb them, let alone kill them. It’s not the mole’s problem that the rubble it throws upset the 35-year-old so much. A mole is one who throws earth. An earth thrower, in other words, which bases its habitat requirements primarily on a year-round food supply. FC Bayern is still responsible for the food.
It was about mentality and not moles!
And questions raised. mentality is everything. It exists or not and the question about it is now annoying like the VAR.
Another topic: What happened to Borussia Dortmund?
The team was just a collection of overpaid stars. An untrainable bastard who was so fickle he was apt to be labeled manic-depressive. The club had lost its center over the years. BVB had become a club that had made itself comfortable on a high plateau and sometimes looked fascinated towards the abyss and sometimes at the summit. The fall was not an option, the way up was too dangerous. You would have had to risk too much. Failure to the sneering applause of the crowd didn’t seem like a viable option. So they stayed in their place and were happy about two cup wins. BVB burned coach after coach, provided the second best players in the country with good contracts, became a fantastically paid career grave.
Inside the fish, as they say in the Ruhr area. Guerreiro scores again.
(Photo: IMAGO/MIS)
From which the players are now digging their way out, unlike a mole could ever do!
Exactly. Julian Brandt and Emre Can, Marius Wolf and Raphael Guerreiro. They are all suddenly the symbol of the Dortmund victory run. It’s no longer a coincidence because it factors in and classifies setbacks. The end against Chelsea was of course financially problematic, but from a sporting point of view it can be explained by the circumstances. Like the 2:2 in the Revierderby against Schalke, where the neighbors from Gelsenkirchen reminded them that they still exist. They prove it week after week in the most amazing way. That’s why the draw was perhaps to be understood as a team building measure. Because with all the “misfortune” in this game, there was the bright spot Raphael Guerreiro. The 29-year-old Portuguese isn’t just playing for a new contract, he’s been doing it in midfield lately.
Because Terzić pushed him there. Can Christian Streich become the coach of Dortmund?
It would be ideal for this club. And maybe it was no coincidence that today’s two Bundesliga coaches stood in close proximity to each other in the Berlin Olympic Stadium in or next to (Ststreich) the Dortmund curve during BVB’s 5-2 win over Bayern Munich in the DFB Cup final.
It has become quieter around Jude Bellingham. He no longer has to carry the team alone.
(Photo: IMAGO/MIS)
So Terzić stays forever. But what about Jude Bellingham?
It has become quiet around the superstar. In the first half of the season he had to carry the team almost alone, but the still 19-year-old has hardly been noticed for weeks. When the English press isn’t making an incredible fuss, when transfer journalists aren’t selling stories with his name, he’s just one of many players. One who wears himself out, who even ultimately caused the loss of points with his ball losses in the derby. But that wasn’t smeared on him either, just as Terzić wasn’t exposed to constant media fire for days in the arena for his too offensive changes in the game. While the mockers were already applauding scornfully and accusing BVB of having carelessly thrown away the title with the 2: 2, they just kept working in Dortmund. Dogged and full of greed, angry about the points given away, but with the knowledge that no team has marched through a half-year with 17 wins. That is simply not possible.
And what about Marco Reus?
The captain has made his decision. “I would like to end my career here,” he said at the weekend. Nothing has been signed yet, talks are still being held and the question is of course: Does BVB also want Marco Reus to end his career in Dortmund? Remains a little exciting. Should he stay in the beer capital, he would become the club’s record goalscorer. But all this is not enough for a monument. Because Bayern were always champions.
Rummenigge and Hoeneß no longer play a key role at FCB.
(Photo: imago images/Sammy Minkoff)
But not this year?
At the end of the day, a person can only drink a limited amount of wine in one lifetime. And at some point you need a break, at some point the last bottle is empty and new people come and drink new wine. At Bayern, after the departure of club icons Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, they are still looking for the next real intoxication. And that would be this short window of time for other clubs to finally get really drunk. Now it would be time. Maybe Bayern just can’t muster any more enthusiasm for the gray everyday life in the league.
Who will be German champion now?
In Dortmund they are currently answering this question by singing. “BVB Borussia” then echoes from the south stand, where the fans are usually a little surprised at how quiet the rest of the stadium is. It almost seems as if the rest of the stadium is being reserved for the game against Mainz at the end of May. And if that doesn’t happen, BVB has at least tried it. In any case, nothing would change in the fundamental dominance of Bayern. The club has too much money for that and not everyone wastes it as pointlessly as Hertha BSC. However, an FCB operating like Windhorst-Hertha would be the basic requirement for a changing of the guard in the Bundesliga. Sometimes, however, a sip of the wonderful wine is enough to get you through the next few years of drought.
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.
We stay in touch.
Stephan Uersfeld spoke to Stephan Uersfeld