It was a long, hard winter for the Borussia Dortmund footballers. Wherever they eked out their miserable existence, whether in luxury resorts on paradise islands or later with the club at the training camp on the Spanish Mediterranean coast in Marbella, every time they called up the Bundesliga table on their smartphones, they discovered their BVB on the depressing one sixth place, a disheartening nine points behind leaders Bayern Munich. “For 72 days,” recalls coach Edin Terzic, “we had to look at it.” You can almost picture him drawing a line on a cold stone wall with a piece of chalk for each of those damned days.
On Sunday evening in Leverkusen, Dortmund finally broke out of their winter frustration. The ordeal was long but as the season wore on it took them just eight days to return to a Champions League spot – and the gap to Bayern is just three points. After a 4:3 win at FC Augsburg, a 2:1 win against FSV Mainz and now this 2:0 win at Bayer Leverkusen, BVB has returned to the Champions League and title race in a hurry.
When the sovereign and well-deserved victory in Leverkusen was perfect, Terzic philosophized about time, which can accumulate and drag on, but which can also be liberated. “Shortly before the winter break, we destroyed everything a bit within four days,” Terzic recalled the two defeats in November in Wolfsburg and Mönchengladbach, “now we’re back in a very tight constellation up front and the deficit to the important places for us has even decreased.”
The Dortmund bench is well manned and Sébastien Haller is back
After the 2-0 win, Terzic praised his entire team for a very serious defense against Leverkusen, who were always extremely dangerous. The coach had seen an indomitable goalkeeper Gregor Kobel, two unfamiliar but all the more effective full-backs Marius Wolf (right) and Julian Ryerson (left), a very present six Emre Can, a very creative eighth Jude Bellingham and finally a winger named Karim Adeyemi, from whom one no longer knew in Dortmund whether the 30 million euros paid to RB Salzburg last summer were really appropriate.
That can’t be judged conclusively now either, but we’ve known since Sunday that this 21-year-old native of Munich can also score goals in the Bundesliga. He made it 1-0 with his debut goal in the 33rd minute and is also willing and able to defend reliably against the fastest strikers in the league. Adeyemi played on the left wing instead of the right wing for the first time on Sunday to tie fast Leverkusen forwards Moussa Diaby and Jeremie Frimpong – and he did exactly as he was told. Terzic was maybe even a bit perplexed about that, but he didn’t let it show. “I see a constant development with Karim,” said the coach, but he also leaves Adeyemi no other choice, because if you don’t spurt anymore, you won’t be in the starting XI at BVB, in the worst case not even in the squad.
“The way he lengthened the balls, kept the defense busy and provided relief was really, really good”: Coach Terzic praises Sébastien Haller (left) after his starting eleven debut after his long-term cancer illness.
(Photo: Dennis Ewert/RHR-Foto/Imago)
Borussia Dortmund filled up its storage during the winter break. Almost all of the injured are fit again. “In Leverkusen,” says Terzic, “I think we had the best bench that Borussia Dortmund has ever had.” At the start of the game, the following sat on this bench: Marco Reus, Mats Hummels, Raphaël Guerreiro, Giovanni Reyna, Donyell Malen, Anthony Modeste and Youssoufa Moukoko. “With so much choice, it’s a tough decision for me,” says Terzic, “but I’d much rather have that than the team almost picking themselves up.” The veterans Hummels and Reus, for example, only came into play in the 85th minute.
And then there was also the starting XI debut of the Franco-Ivorian Sébastien Haller, who is now fully available for Dortmund for the first time after his protracted testicular cancer disease. “The way he lengthened the ball, kept the defense busy and provided relief was really, really good,” said Terzic.
The BVB trainer also had warning words in his luggage, just under an hour after the victory in Leverkusen he held a monologue with an insane number of question marks: “Now it’s about: Are we ready to take the next step? Or do we do it now Less? Do we have to talk again in two weeks about catching up points? Or do we keep our foot on the accelerator and keep going like this? Next up we have an extremely difficult home game against SC Freiburg and we have to keep going.”
It may have been a long, hard winter for Dortmund, but it will also be a long, hard spring, because experience has shown that nothing has been won on the 18th matchday of a season.
