A yellow tide made up of miles and miles advances through the streets of Dortmund. It’s touching. They are happy and expectant, but without making a fuss, perhaps out of prudence. They generate little more than a buzz. From the air it looks like a gigantic, long and robust yellow worm making its way through the eighth largest city in Germany. It is the always numerous and faithful Borussia fans who head towards the stadium, the Westfalenstadion, inaugurated for the 1974 World Cup, now, for sponsorship reasons, called Signal Iduna Park. It is filled with 81,365 fans for decades at every game. That is why Borussia is famous. Today more than ever because the day has come. Finally, today the champions will shout again, German champions…!
(You can read: Bayern Munich, German soccer champion).
The vibrant outcome of the Bundesliga
It has been eleven years of waiting since the last consecration. And ten consecutive titles for Bayern Munich, the master of the Bundesliga, the supreme dictator. But today everything will be left behind and they will show that they are the only ones capable of lowering the forelock to the Bavarians. Surely all the German fans that are not Bayern’s will go for a Dortmund victory, since they are all a bit fed up with the follow-up of the club of Gerd Müller and Franz Beckenbauer. It doesn’t do Teutonic football any good either, it doesn’t evolve when the same team always wins.
It is the last date of the tournament. Yes or yes there will be coronation. In Dortmund or in Cologne, where Bayern play. Borussia is with 70 points and +39 goal difference, Bayern 68 and +53. Borussia must win so as not to depend on anyone. Bayern the same, but they also need Borussia to lose or at least draw. With equal points, Bayern will celebrate on goal difference.
Emotion flirts at two ends. Borussia hosts Mainz, ninth in the standings. They shouldn’t have a problem winning, even if it’s 1-0. Bellingham, its star, with discomfort, goes to the bank. Bayern visits Cologne, tenth. If Cologne gets even a draw, Dortmund will turn Olympic. But the yellow team leaves the field listless, without brilliance, as if lazy. It’s not a good sign. The news coming from Cologne is not reassuring either: there is a Bayern goal after just 8 minutes: Kingsley Coman, the man with the decisive goals whom PSG cradled and then gave away, as is traditional at PSG.
At 15, an unexpected blow at the Westfalenstadion: Mainz goal, by Norwegian defender Hanche-Olsen. Who is Hanche-Olsen…? Where did he come from…? What a nosy Norwegian…! The yellow crowd loses its euphoria, it becomes serious. This should be an afternoon of glory, not drama.
However, four minutes later there is a clumsy free kick from Kohr to the Portuguese Raphael Guerreiro and a penalty for Dortmund. Everything will go well. It will be executed by the Dutchman Sebastien Haller, the man who overcame testicular cancer and returned to play. We all want to convert. But Haller finishes off with incredible indifference, as if he were playing with his five-year-old son in the back of his house, who is kicked slowly, and the young goalkeeper Finn Dahmen covers him. It was the penalty of the century for Dortmund… and a badly kicked penalty is a wasted penalty. They will mourn him for years. Already the worst omens begin to fly over the sky of prosperous Dortmund. The Borusser fan has gone through this, he has suffered too much against Bayern and fears the worst.
(Unbelievable: Bayern Munich wins the title, but kicks out two of their brains.)
Anything can happen in football
Five minutes after that penalty that nobody will remember and that nobody will ever forget, a meteorite falls on the Borussia stadium: Mainz’s second goal, Karim Onisiwo. Now, 2-0 and the drama is definitely in the air. It’s like a back palace, in the neck. Eighty-two thousand people dressed in yellow – and thousands more outside the stadium, without entry – are left frozen. The images on TV are bleak, heads bowed, women comforting their boyfriends and husbands. It will be difficult to raise that, to score three goals when Dortmund’s best scorer is Julian Brandt and he has 9 goals. He is 20th in the gunners table. There is no goal in that part of Germany. And you have to do three in 65 minutes. Will it be possible…? The fans don’t believe. His players’ legs are shaking. Nobody wants to think about losing this title. It will be very hard emotionally, memes and loser labels will come for a long time. Borussia is the best talent discoverer in the world, but they don’t win titles and that’s what their people want. The camera zooms into the stands at minute 60 and shows supporters starting to get up and leave. Bitterness crushed their faith.
The Dortmund coach, Edin Terzić, sees his army falter and makes two changes at 62′: Giovanni Reyna (American, 20 years old) and Julien Duranville (Belgian, 17). He changes the face of the team, they give it life, enthusiasm. And Dortmund redoubles its attack. Guerreiro marks the discount after fantastic play by Reyna. Hope is reborn: 1-2. Suddenly, 73 kilometers away, a major novelty occurs: a goal from Cologne, Bayern draws 1-1 and with that, Dortmund is champion, even losing. Euphoria is reinstated in the yellow side. Flags fly, life seems fair again. Those who had gone home return to their seats.
It’s been 78 minutes, 82, 83… there are no changes. In Cologne, Bayern drew 1-1 and in Dortmund they beat Mainz 2-1. Thus, Borussia is champion. It is not ideal to be a champion losing, and at home, but it is what it is, it will be celebrated the same. However, Thomas Tuchel, DT of Bayern, moves a card, an essential card: the Moroccan Mazraoui leaves, a winger, and Jamal Musiala enters, the best project in German football, 20 years old, talented, skilful, number 10. Just 4 minutes Later, Musiala receives an inconsequential pass from Gnabry and does what great cracks do: he dodges Martel and with great determination hits the goal, below, to the far post, where he is brave for the goalkeepers. The ball takes a remarkable fight and gets in: 2 to 1 for Bayern and with that goal they are champions.
Only this sport generates these emotions
It’s been 78 minutes, 82, 83… there are no changes. In Cologne, Bayern drew 1-1 and in Dortmund they beat Mainz 2-1. Thus, Borussia is champion. It is not ideal to be a champion losing, and at home, but it is what it is, it will be celebrated the same. However, Thomas Tuchel, DT of Bayern, moves a card, an essential card: the Moroccan Mazraoui leaves, a winger, and Jamal Musiala enters, the best project in German football, 20 years old, talented, skilful, number 10. Just 4 minutes Later, Musiala receives an inconsequential pass from Gnabry and does what great cracks do: he dodges Martel and with great determination hits the goal, below, to the far post, where he is brave for the goalkeepers. The ball takes a remarkable fight and gets in: 2 to 1 for Bayern and with that goal they are champions.
In Dortmund the drama of the fans is total, they take the head. What they intuited could happen was happening: losing the title they had served. It’s cruel. The players, without ideas or grit, disorderly, with hardly any enthusiasm, continue to pound into the Mainz area and defender Niklas Süle scores 2-2 at 96′. But it’s not enough, Bayern have already finished and won. There are only seconds left that the referee gives them when time was already expired and the final result, fatefully, is 2 to 2. Dortmund finished the same as Bayern, with 71 points, but lost the crown by difference. Once again, bested by the Munich ogre. The footballers collapse on the pitch, several with their faces against the grass, others covering their faces with the shirt that does not have glory sweat, it is a horrible sweat, of defeat and frustration. They don’t want to move, they keep lying. And tomorrow we will have to go out into the street.
In Cologne, the antithesis: Bayern celebrates a championship that they considered lost since before it began, since the previous Saturday, when they had lost 3-1 at home to Leipzig. No one gave a penny for the Bavarian painting anymore. But this is football, and even the most unusual happens with Prussian punctuality. The Musiala boy is congratulated by everyone and the three great Bavarian captains, Thomas Müller, Manuel Neuer (in civilian clothes, injured) and Joshua Kimmich, raise the huge salad bowl that the Bundesliga gives to the winner. Only football generates these emotions.Never in the five major leagues had a club won 11 consecutive titles. Bayern have done it.
JORGE BARRAZA
@JorgeBarrazaOK
SPECIAL FOR THE WEATHER
LAST TANGO….
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