For one party it's the derby...
and for us it's just a match. Okay, I admit every single match is more than what you can find on the matchdays playlist. It's not only about winning or losing, it's not only about gaining 3 points. It means much more to the supporters of the opposing clubs. It's also about passion, supporting the own team as loud as possible, being louder than the enemy and even more than this.
But there are also matches that are way more important to us. Our heartbeat accelerates dramatically if we see fans from our nearly insolvent „friends“ from the ugliest place of the world close to Herne in our stadium 100m in front of us. It's a feeling you can't describe.
So todays question is: What happens, if only one of the two parties calls saturdays match VfL Bochum against Borussia Dortmund a derby?
Well, to be honest the only club which truly represents something comparable to derby atmosphere will be the yellow- black one from the ruhrpott's football capital. Although the supporters of Bochum take this game more serious than we do, taking a closer look at last years match in Bochum (April '09) shows that an estimated half of the crowd wore the most beautiful colours of the world and sung with pride and loudness while watching 
Dortmund winning the match 0:2. If Dortmund supporters rock the little neighbours' stadium again on saturday, the support will be a good compensation for the injured players.
Sven Bender and Mats Hummels will miss the match as well as Dede who suffers a rupture of muscle fiber. Although he only took place on the bank, it's a great loss to the team which misses one of the most experienced players. In return, Sebastian Kehl will take his leading role in Borussias midfield after he proved last weekend that he's a very important player both as a person as well as a midfield actor. In addition Jakub „Kuba“ Blasczykowski and Kevin Großkreutz, both slightly injured, will be fit tomorrow, but there's still a question mark behind the name „Valdez“ who got injured last saturday.
Bochum trainer Heiko Herrlich, a former Dortmund player, joked about his personal view at the match and said it was just special because every journalist asks him about it. Herrlich will need to replace another former Dortmund player, Diego Klimowicz, as well as Mavraj,Prokoph and Renno. Whether Epallé and Grote will play or not will be decided on saturday. The algerian international Anthar Yahia will replace Mavray in the defense's center.
Herrlich also said Dortmund will be the favourite- but as all of us know our glorious Borussia often showed a lack of consequence in matches that were predicted to be easy wins. But surely Klopp will motivate the team which is momentarily on place 5 of the Bundesliga chart to solve this task successfully. Bochum, Bundesligas topical number 14, will try to counter our offensive efforts to win, but if our offensive acts as well as against Gladbach, we might enlarge the gap to a non- internationally- qualifying position to 6 points (provided that Werder Bremen loses in Hoffenheim).
In a nutshell, the task for saturday can be summarized in two words: „Three points“. And who knows, if Schlacke struggles against Stuttgart and Hamburg loses in Leverkusen we might take a glance again at what is above and not below us in the Bundesliga table.
Zar'roc, 12.03.2010
