This time, there would be nobody else to blame. Not Pep Guardiola or Robert Lewandowski or Uli Hoeness or the referees or the authorities.
Not the big players who kept leaving for fresher pastures, nor the bigger clubs who lured them there, nor the financial inequities that impelled them to do so. This time, when the full-time whistle blew with Bayern Munich on top and Borussia Dortmund in second place once again, they knew that the they had been the sole architects of their downfall.
As the full-time whistle blew on a breezy early-summer afternoon, a strange and unfamiliar noise gripped the huge Westfalenstadion: the sound of nothing at all. A silence, an emptiness, a void, an unrequited longing. Eleven years without a title will become 12, and now how many more? There were bitter tears and there will be even bitterer memories: the photographic negatives of a day on which Dortmund came, and saw, and did not conquer.
There will be recriminations too: a full and frank postmortem into the way Edin Terzic’s league-leading team mislaid virtually every single one of the traits that took them to the summit. It was impossible not to feel for those players as they laid out on the sun-soaked turf after the game, each of them choosing to sit in the shade. But equally: how is it possible for professional footballers to make this many bad decisions of this importance? How can a team simply forget who they are?
In hindsight it was remarkable just how lightly the prospect of a Dortmund collapse was being taken in the days before the game, as the parade plans were merrily being made and the souvenir T-shirts were already being printed. The fans who began queueing outside the Westfalenstadion from 6am and who made the banner reading “Wir haben es in der hand!” – we have it in our hands! – were certainly not in the mood to brook doubt. This was, after all, the stadium where they had won 11 straight games in the league, where they have not been beaten in any competition since August. Last week’s sweat-soaked victory at 10-man Augsburg was supposed to be the hard bit. Dortmund had arrived for a coronation, not a war.
Yet from the very earliest stages, things started to go awry. First Bayern took an early lead in Cologne. Next Mainz’s first shot led to a corner from which Andreas Hanche-Olsen was allowed to ghost in undetected with a glancing header. And as Dortmund shook themselves from their reverie, they were to discover one of the iron rules of hosting a party: it is deceptively hard to put a champagne cork back in the bottle, and you will probably end up looking quite stupid trying.
Sébastien Haller after his missed penalty against Mainz
This time, there would be nobody else to blame. Not Pep Guardiola or Robert Lewandowski or Uli Hoeness or the referees or the authorities. Not the big players who kept leaving for fresher pastures, nor the bigger clubs who lured them there, nor the financial inequities that impelled them to do so. This time, when the full-time whistle blew with Bayern Munich on top and Borussia Dortmund in second place once again, they knew that the they had been the sole architects of their downfall.
Still, there was plenty of football to be played, and when Raphaël Guerreiro was awarded a penalty on video review after being brought down by Dominik Kohr, a collective sigh of relief seemed to ripple around the ground. Perhaps it was going to be fine after all. Sébastian Haller stepped up and placed the penalty. Finn Dahmen saved it. And perhaps that was the point at which Dortmund seemed to switch into blind panic mode, every decision now served up with lashings of terror, tight muscles and the screeching chagrin of 81,000 people swearing all at once.
And so when the excellent Lee Jae-sung surged down the left, it was the most natural thing in the world for Karim Onisiwo to ghost in again and head home. The rest of the half passed in something of a blur. Kohr missed a golden chance to make it 3-0. Karim Adeyemi limped off injured to be replaced by Marco Reus. Julian Brandt ran in on goal, with Dortmund five on two, and for some reason decided to shoot straight at the goalkeeper from an unpromising angle. Donyell Malen hit the post with a header. Your correspondent learned some more German swear words.
Youssoufa Moukoko came on at half-time as the siege began. But this was not so much a military strategy as a playground scrap: fists flying at thin air, heads gone all over the shop. Haller missed from two yards. Reus missed a header from six yards. Then so did Haller. Then so did the substitute Gio Reyna. There were low-percentage long shots, although frankly everything felt low-percentage at this point. Finally, with 20 minutes remaining, this dirty pint of rancid crosses, hopeful knockdowns and wild ricochets offered a fleeting moment of clarity when a loose ball ran to Guerreiro, who slammed the ball in from 18 yards. Then Cologne scored.
For a few golden minutes in the sunshine Dortmund were champions again. It was a strange feeling: suddenly this game which mattered so much seemed not to matter at all. With a grim inevitability, Bayern claimed the winning goal and their 11th title in a row. The news spread around the stadium like dispatches from a bloody frontline. With virtually the final kick, Niklas Süle slammed the ball in from close range, but it wasn’t enough. Dortmund: bridesmaids again, and if the tears stung a little harder this time then it was purely the knowledge that they had jilted themselves.
