Hello heartattack, nice to see you again...
After a long dreading time of three terrible boring weeks filled with Christmas and New Years celebrations, for Borussia Dortmund the second half of the season began on Sunday, the 17th of January at 17: 30 o’ clock and the matchday successfully ended at around 19:20. At least for us. After BVB hat won the first leg in Dortmund with a little bit of help from Cologne’s Matip, Sunday’s game took place in Cologne this time, only a couple of weeks before Carnival. Cologne, however, had little to celebrate this evening. While the teams in front of Dortmund had all won, Wolfsburg and Werder Bremen had both lost. An ideal chance for Dortmund to get a comfortable head start to the teams behind them.
Dortmund’s only change of the squad consisted in Valdez stepping in for Zidan who was busy for his team in the Africa Cup. Before the game started, two representatives of Cologne’s fans gave us two huge flower bouquets in order to congratulate us for our 100 year anniversary. Thanks for that.
But now, let the games begin…Dortmund had apperently not quite realized that the wintersleep was already over since it was Cologne whom the first 20 minutes of the game belonged to. Dortmund had not quite organized themselves in the midfield and so Colognes offensive players came pushing towards our goal. Dortmund’s defense stood rather tight, however, in the 21st minute of the game Novakovic suddenly appeared in front of our goal which led to Weidenfeller striving out of his goal. Unfortunately the crash with Subotic and Novakovic caused a huge flesh wound around his knee. Ziegler had to stood in for Weidenfeller who could not continue. In the 28th minute of the game it was Dortmund’s turn to show some 
qualities. After a cornerkick bei Sahin, Lucas Barrios forwarded the ball towards Mats Hummels who headed it into the goal. 0:1 for us. It is impressive that it was Cologne who controlled the game and showed way better game moves, but yet it was Dortmund who scored. In the 38th minute every player and viewer suffered from shock when Subotic and McKenna crashed together. Cologne`s McKenna fell to the floor and lost conscience. Bad memories appeared from last season when Cologne’s Özat lost conscience on the field and took several minutes to regain it. Fortunately McKenna recovered quickly and was able to continue playing.i Still Cologne continued to push towards our goal and Chihi (40th) and Novakovic (43rd) had the chance to change the score. Yet again it was Dortmund who used their chances and scored the 0:2 in the 46th minute of the game. Lukas Podolski commited a foul on Owomoyela. It was again Sahin who kicked the free kick and it was again Hummels who headed the ball into the job. Great job. With this good feeling we stepped into the break.
The second half began differently than the first one. Now it was Dortmund who had the upperhand of the game and pushed towards Cologne’s goal. However, no real chance developed from that. In the 75th minute it was Ziegler’s chance to prove himself. He prevented Dortmund with an excellent save from the 1:2. Only a couple of minutes later it was Ehret who had the chance to score the 1:2. Luckily he missed the goal. To be honest, the game was alright. We describe the 80. minute of the game and we were 0:2 in the lead. The game was not too exciting. And the playing abilities were not the greatest ones either, but it was okey. The last ten minutes of the game, however, proved to be the most exciting ones. Dortmund’s defense seemed to be a bit sleepy at that point, maybe the players also already considered the 
game to be won. How wrong they were. In the 82nd minute of the game it was the then unconscious McKenna who scored the 1:2 for Cologne with his head. The Carnivalteam gathered all its strength and, due to Dortmund’s lazy and sloppy behavior, scored the 2:2. It is unbelievable how Dortmund manages to give away the game in only 5 minutes, however, they do a great job doing that. It was not the first time they had quit playing football in the last minutes of the game. On this day, however, the Footballgod wore black and yellow dresses and Dormund’s boy Kevin Großkreutz managed to kick the ball into Cologne’s goal in the 91st minute. Game over.
My cheers were probably still heard 100 miles away and the happy feeling that spread throughout my body after the 2:3 is hard to describe, however, a little less excitement next time would probably be a bit better for my health.
It was not an overly outragious performance. This time, it was enough though. I am not too sure, however, if this would be enough next week in the game against Hamburg. With a victory against Hamburg we would be able to climb up the table onto place 4. And leave Hamburg behind.
This victory though was very important in order to keep Bremen at distance. Good job boys.
Stats:
Carnival Team Cologne: Mondragon – Brecko, Womé, Mohamad, McKenna – Petit, Maniche, Pezzoni – Podolski, Novakovic, Chihi
Changes: Freis für Podolski (60.), Ehret für Petit (72)
BVB: Weidenfeller (2) – Subotic (3), Hummels (2), Owomoyela (3), Schmelzer(3,5) – Sahin(3), Kuba (4-), Bender (4), Großkreutz (3) – Valdez (4,5-), Barrios (3,5)
Changes: Ziegler for Weidenfeller, Santana for Kuba, Götze for Valdez
Goals: 0:1 Hummels (28.), 0:2 Hummels (45+5.), 1:2 McKenna (82.), 2:2 Mohamad (89.), 2:3 Großkreutz (90+1.)
Referee: Florian Meyer
Viewers: 50 000 (sold out)
Ida, 19.01.2010
