Won three points, but lost 3 players
Finally Bundesliga is back. No more boring Saturdays, no more boring friendlies. Borussia Dortmund had a perfect start to the season with a 3-2 win at Bayer Leverkusen. But off the pitch two inkuries casted dark clouds on Borussia's squad. Weidenfeller had to leave the pitch with a lacerating wound, while Dede was hit by the ultimate threat - torn cruciate ligament.
Scenario/Line up
Just yesterday evening a bomb exploded. Bild, biggest German tabloid, reported that Borussia Dortmund and Hamburger SV were preparing a player swap. Rumours were that Petric would be on his way to Hamburg while Mohammad Zidan should be transferred to BVB. And really, when Borussia's starting eleven was announced....Petric was missing! He was not even in the squad, but already on his way to Hamburg to negotiate last contract details. In return Zidan signed with Dortmund on Sunday. Reports are that HSV has to add 4.5 million Euro to make this swap possible. But more on this later in a separate article.
Both teams had to cope with some players missing due to injury. While home coach Bruno Labbadia had to replace goalie Rene Adler, Jürgen Klopp had to leave Dortmund without Tinga, Frei, Buckley and Owomoyela. But all of them are expected to return within 3 weeks at least. The surroundings weren't that perfect as Leverkusen's BayArena is a construction site at the moment as the stadium will be expanded. So there are no roofs at the moment. Anyway, as it wasn't raining, it was still ok.
First Half
Borussia took control early and was especially over Kuba's right wing threating Leverkusen. And so it took only 4 minutes until a nice diagonal low cut-in found Nelson Valdez more or less unmarked in front of Fernandez' goal. The hard-working striker, who was everthiny else but a marksman during the last two season, finalized with a unspectacular low volley - 1-0 BVB!
Leverkusen came back in style. A powerful distance shot by Patrick Helmes was still wide, but now it was a really entertaining match with two attacking teams. In minute 13 Leverkusen had another approach, that was blocked by central defender Mats Hummels. On the other side Klimowicz, who had replaced Mladen Petric, wasted a good chance. Another attack by Leverkusen in minute 21 found Kießling with some space 30 metres in front of BVB's goal. He played a direct pass cutting through our defence and sending Helmes up and away. The future national player had no problem playing the ball past Roman Weidenfeller - 1-1. It seemed like Antonio Rukavina destroyed our offside trap prior to this goal as he stood some metres behind Hummels, Subotic and Dede.
And Helmes was only 10 minutes later on his way to double his score. Again he was up and away on the right side and penetrating BVB's box. His shot from tight angle passed Weidenfeller but was fantastically cleard by Subotic stood on the goalline. When the attendance expected the home team to further raise the pressure it was again an attack by Kuba. The quick right midfielder lobbed the ball down the right wing, where Nelson Valdez was pacing down the line. While everyone expected a low cut-in into the 6y-box, where Klimowicz waited, Valdez showed that he has improved his gameplay and played a wonderful pass through the box, that found Florian Kringe unmarked 12 metres from the goalline. The versatile midfielder executed easily and it was 2-1 for BVB!
When everyone was waitint for the halftime break there was another arouser, sadly a not that positive one. A long distance pass from midfield dropped into Dortmund's box. Roman Weidenfeller came out of his goal, jumped and catched the ball. Unfortunately he hit his right knee with the cleats of his left shoe. The result was a 10 centimetre lacerating wound. Jürgen Klopp had to be replace him by Marc Ziegler.
Second half
Borussia came back onto the pitch with Marc-Andre Kruska as holding midfielder and so striker Diego Klimowicz had an early end to his working day. With this change Jürgen Klopp wanted stabilize our midfield and defend the narrow lead. But it was not Leverkusen who had the first chance but Borussia Dortmund. A corner kick by Tamas Hajnal sailed directly onto Subotic' head and the tall defender hit the net leaving Fernandez no chance to save - 3-1 for BVB! Unbelievable joy among the guest supporters on the stands. A real party was happening there!
But like in the first half every joyful moment was followed by shadow. In a duel with Renato Augusto, that looked more or less normal, Dede got injured and was taken off the pitch some minutes later. The disastrous dignosis came on the same evening: Torn front cruciate ligament - 6 months out. That is really hard for Jürgen Klopp and his team and Dede is playing on a constant high level since years and we have no back up who is playing on his level.
Leverkusen made a last desperate attempt to achieve a draw at least. Labbadia brought on striker after striker, so that in the dying minutes 5 (!) strikers were on the field. And yes, the increasing pressure impressed Borussia. While we had only few counter attacks, Bayer created some nice chances. One of these wasted counter attacks saw Valdez up and away heading towards Bayer's goal. Unfortunately Valdez tried to play the ball arund Fernandez. The young goalie snapped the ball easily. And only minutes later it seemed that this would come back at us. A high cut-in found Kießling unmarked on the right side and his header was out of Ziegler's reach - 2-3. We had to survive some more dangerous situations and Ziegler saved 2 or 3 balls nicely but after 94 minutes referee Gagelmann blew the final whistle.
Summary
An entertaining match that saw 2 attacking teams. While during the first half both teams had equal shares, in the second half Leverkusen had much more chances that Dortmund. The difference was that Borussia scored at psychological important moments, just before and after halftime break, and then defended the lead with passion and a strong goalie. All in all it was a delightful start into the season regarding sporting issues. On the other hands we lost Weidenfeller for 2 weeks and Dede for up to 6 months. It will be a difficult task for Klopp to deal with this injuries.
Next week we have Bayern clash at home in Westfalenstadion. In front of a capacity crowd of more than 80.000 spectators it is likely that we see our new striker Zidan for the first time in black-yellow.
Voices
Bruno Labbadia: „Of course we are very, very dissapointed. We invested that much today and played nice football. The team was convinced to turn the match until last minute. With a little bit luck we should have scored the equalizer. But all in all that doesn't count anymore, we have zero points."
Jürgen Klopp: „Sadly it seems that Dede got seriously injured, so the match is not that important to me at the moment and it is hard to talk about it. It was a very, very good match and a spectacular start into the season."
Statistics
Bayer Leverkusen: Fernandez - Castro, Friedrich, Henrique, Djakpa (89. Bulykin) - Rolfes - Renato Augusto, Vidal (68. Gekas), Barnetta (79. Dum) - Kießling, Helmes
Coach: Bruno Labbadia
BVB: Weidenfeller (45. Ziegler) - Rukavina, Subotic, Hummels, Dede (72. Schmelzer) - Hajnal, Kehl - Kuba, Kringe - Valdez, Klimowicz (46. Kruska)
Coach: Jürgen Klopp
(Marks: 1=world class, 2=did very well, 3=performance was ok, 4=not enough but not too bad at all, 5=not worth the money, 6=should pay money for playing football)
Goals: 0-1 Valdez (4., right-footed, assist Kuba), 1-1 Helmes (21., right-footed, Kießling), 1-2 Kringe (36., right-footed, Valdez), 1-3 Subotic (49., header, Hajnal), 2-3 Kießling (83., header, Dum)
Yellow cards: Renato Augusto, Djakpa, Friedrich - Subotic, Kehl
Referee: Gagelmann
Attendance: 21.000 (BayArena, sold out)
