ZOne of the news of the week was Lothar Matthäus’ shoulder injury. The former national player is used as a co-commentator for the pay channel Sky at Bundesliga games, especially in games that are considered top games by the German football industry. The injury was bad enough for the 64-year-old; It also resulted in collateral damage suffered by Dietmar Hamann, who normally sits in the warm studio at Sky.
Hamann, 52, not only had to watch the dreary 0-0 draw in the Hamburg derby between FC St. Pauli and HSV on Friday evening in sub-zero temperatures. But also the encounter between 1. FC Union and Borussia Dortmund, at what felt like ten degrees below zero. In the Alte Försterei, Hamann at least saw a game that was a bit better in quality than the Hamburg Clásico and, at least, scored goals: Dortmund won – in the end confidently – 3-0. And thus also provided an answer to the criticism of last Tuesday’s 0-2 defeat in the Champions League at Tottenham Hotspur.
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The game gave Borussia Dortmund an early lead. Serhou Guirassy took advantage of the fact that Union’s extremely reliable central defender Leopold Querfeld was frozen, stumbled into the penalty area and was clearly knocked off his feet by the rushing goalkeeper Frederik Rönnow. Emre Can safely converted the penalty in the 10th minute.
In the 18th minute, Querfeld looked bad again: he let a dynamic Felix Nmecha run him near the penalty area and was then lucky that BVB lacked resoluteness. Nmecha passed across to Guirassy instead of finishing himself, Guirassy passed back to Bellingham, who shot at the desperately rushing back crossfield; Fábio Silva put the rebound next to the goal. After that there was a break in the game of the dominant Dortmund team.
On the one hand, Union now took over possession of the ball, which didn’t particularly help the game’s appeal. Union only had chances from set pieces by Josip Juranovic, in the 5th minute by André Ilic, and in the 28th minute by Diogo Leite. On the other hand, the fans of both camps also received more attention for their posters. They targeted the Berlin police and Interior Minister Iris Spranger (SPD) for the obviously excessive action on the sidelines of the second division game between Hertha BSC and Schalke 04 from the previous week. There were wishes for the injured to get well – and rather unfriendly greetings to the Berlin security forces. They were just below the level of insults that BVB captain Can had to endure until he was substituted in the second half.
BVB is still eight points behind FC Bayern
After the break it took less than ten minutes for Dortmund to make it 2-0. It was a goal that was the result of a co-production between two former Union players – and that actually corresponded to the modus operandi that has been indulged in in Köpenick for years. Julian Ryerson took a corner kick to the second post, where Nico Schlotterbeck rose up and headed the ball into the goal from a tight angle to make it 2-0 – with the help of the indisposed goalkeeper Rönnow (54th). From the Dane’s point of view, it was all the more bitter because he had previously brilliantly parried a deflected 18-meter shot from Jobe Bellingham.
This did not plunge 1. FC Union into a sea of ice of depression; they had always made up for deficits in the previous three games. Coach Steffen Baumgart successively substituted attacking forces: Stanley Nsoki, Livan Burcu, Oliver Burke, Andras Schäfer. But apart from a shot from Burcu (82nd), hardly anything jumped out. One of the reasons for this was that BVB coach Nico Kovac substituted central defender Aarón Anselmino. The Argentine consolidated the defense and thus created the basis for Dortmund to make it 3-0 through Maximilian Beier in the 84th minute and set the final point.
This hardly gives the league a title fight, Bayern Munich is eight points ahead despite Saturday’s defeat against Augsburg. But Dortmund can approach the Champions League game against Inter Milan on Wednesday with the security of having consolidated second place in the table, while Union are still in ninth place a few days after celebrating the club’s 60th birthday.
