Another look at the week of truth

Before the last three matches, much has been said about the importance of those three meetings with the three big clubs of Bayern Munich, Arsenal FC and Blue-White. It was said that after the three matches, one could get a clue of the future of the Deutscher Meister 2011 and that this week would be a kind of decisive for the rest of the whole season concerning competition in Bundesliga and Champions League. Therefore, after these three matches have been played, it is time to evaluate on that. What impressions did we get? What does the future have in store for Borussia? Of course, it is necessary to divide this analysis in two parts, national and international competition.

Bundesliga

Before what was called the "week of truth", Borussia was five points behind the dominant leader of the Bundesliga, FC Bayern Munich. The record champion marched through the whole league and gained several impressive victories, only losing twice before the home match against BVB. At several occasions, so-called experts already spoke about the new champion Bayern Munich who will have no problems winning the trophy this year and quite honestly, I had the same opinion. Therefore, the possibility of losing even more ground to Munich and leaving the first match of the week of truth with eight points difference to the top of the league needed to be taken into account before the match. However, it turned out to be totally different. With a tactical masterpiece, Jürgen Klopp and his young guns managed to beat the Lederhosen and only allowed a few opportunities for the Bavarians. A fully deserved win was the outcome of the first part of the week of truth and Borussia gained lots of credits for keeping up with Munich. However, Borussia was still two points behind but conquered the second rank.
Thus, everyone was happy about the Bundesliga position before one of the two most important matches of the year, the derby. Even though Borussia suffered a defeat in London, everyone was ready for the derby and who would have really thought about a match like we witnessed on Saturday beforehand? Blue-white scum was completely destroyed and dominated (with the exception of the first fifteen minutes of half two) over the entire game. And most importantly, the dominance was converted into two goals and a derby victory. The city of Dortmund was totally satisfied, everyone running through the streets wore a content smile and celebrated until the small hours. And as if that would not have been enough for a perfect weekend, Mainz 05 beat Bayern on Sunday and Dortmund gained the lead in the rankings after fourteen days. Finally, the order of the Bundesliga has been restored and the so-called experts are not so sure about Bayern dominating and winning the championship anymore, some even think that BVB could play a role in the fight for the trophy this season once again. And I would like to underline that. After some weeks of struggling at the start of the season, Borussia found its form again and is on a roll now, even though some personal issues like the missing of Sven Bender and Neven Subotic came up recently. Six points and two victories against the two rivals of Bayern Munich and Scheisse 04. Sounds like a perfect week, doesn't it? And in some way, it definitely was. However, a little shadow still consists of the Champions League.

Champions League

Even though the BVB supporters who travelled to London conquered the Emirates stadium and gained respect for creating a great atmosphere at the away match and the players did their best to keep their little chance of advancing to the knockout stage, BVB once again got to know that the Champions League is a painful business where small mistakes are severely punished by experienced players and great scorers like Robin van Persie. Only the biggest optimists still see a chance for the Ballspielverein advancing, getting rank three making a visit to Europa League possible will be hard enough. However, even being knocked out of European competition can still be a chance for our young guns. Like last year, Bayern Munich probably will stay in the Champions League for a long time and of course, this results in some kind of tiredness. Borussia could profit from that in the fight for the championship. And who knows, maybe a 4-0 against Marseille could become possible in the Westfalenstadion on December 6th, how often did we witness a wonder in football over the last years and decades?

Conclusion

Six out of nine possible points in the week of truth are an outcome which is more than satisfying. Beforehand, I would instantly have signed a deal if someone (no matter if it was the devil himself, Franz Beckenbauer, Uli Hoeneß or Felix Magath, where is the difference?) would have come to me and proposed this development. We are back on top of the league and back in the fight for the title, even though it is important to point out that this would be the biggest result of the season but not the most important one, a place which grants Champions League competition for 2012/2013 would be perfectly fine. Thus, the likely end of our Champions League run should not make anyone sad. Derbysieger, Spitzenreiter and fuck off Champions League. Week of Truth? Mission accomplished.

Vanni, 1.12.2011

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