Celebration weekend part one!

Even though we still have one more game ahead of us, with accepting the "Schale" one more time, the Bundesliga season 2011/2012 is herewith officially completed and we are- once again- Championship winners.
But not only that. The victory of this trophy surely is a highlight that most of us didn't quite expect after the first few games of the season, but still, this season means more than this trophy. We are now officially the new record holder of the best "Deutscher Meister" of all time in the history of the Bundesliga. 81 points. 81 points after the 34th matchday. Seven points it was after matchday number 6. But further: 28 games undefeated in a row- another record our players achieved with hard work and tons of passion. 47 out of possible 51 points in the second half of the season- an unbelievable number; 80 goals scored. I could go on and on and on about the great things we have achieved this season. But you probably know all that anyway.
So let's take a look at the (first) celebration weekend. On Friday we had the "Borussia Hearts Club Meisterparty" in one of our favorite pubs in Dortmund again. SPecial guest Kringe was given a wonderful farewell by us fans and his easy going and open attitude made us probably miss him even more in the future. He will always be a Dortmunder Jung and deserves succesful years in the following steps of his career. With live music, loads of BVB songs and quite a bit of beer, the night that followed was rather short (at least when it concerns our sleep) and quite tired we all went to the stadium the following day. Outside rain was pouring down and the weathergod surely deserved some punishment for that. How dare he welcoming Champions like that? Never mind. Our mood was brilliant anyway. The stadium was crowded, sold out of course, and our guests from Freiburg a very good sport as it would later turn out.

Before the game

Before the game three of our players were said good bye after they had given all their best for our Ballspielverein. There was on the one side the man of the game against Hoffenheim around 1,5 years ago: Toni da Silva. With his scoring freekick in the 93. minute of the game, which we were behind till then with 1:0, he marked a special moment of our first Championship victory under Jürgen Klopp. All the best for you Toni in your future. Then there was our goal hero Luca Barrios. After his long injury he had lost his starting place of the team to Robert Lewandowski and had hence decided that he would look for a new challenge in China. What he did for our Ballspielverein will never be forgottten though. He played a huge role in our last championship season and was a great sportsman all the way through. Lucas will surely be missed, let's hope he will do great in China as well. All the best to you Lucas and 1909 times thanks for everything you did for our Ballspielverein. Last but not least, Florian Kringe was farewelled. A player that was always there in our bad years, who always approached the angry fans who were fed up with the team, who listened, as one of the few players, to all the bullying from the fans- a true champion. His injuries threw him behind quite often and he hardly played a role on the pitch anymore in the past years, but for all his effort and passion for our team, especially in the bad years, he surely deserves the title "Deutscher Meister" just as much as all the other players do.
But there was also a game that had to be played, after all those 81 points must come from somewhere.

First Half

With a beautiful choreography by the Süd, that involved loads of flags that were waved through the air, the game began. And shortly after it had begun the score was actually 1:0 already. After a nice pass from Gündogan, Kuba approached Freiburgs keeper and cold as ice shoved the ball into the lower corner of the goal. What a great way to begin the game. And it basically continued this way. Freiburg did an amazing job in the second half of the season. They were on chart position number 18 after the first half, and if you only counted the table of the second half, you would find Freiburg on sport number 5. This game, however, felt like Freiburg did not mean to spoil the party and did thus nothing to jeopardize our goal festival. After 20 minutes it was Lewandowski who danced around Freiburgs keeper and marked the 2:0 for us. POintrecord, here we come. Seven minutes later? Piszczek danced through Freiburgs defense into their penalty area and tried keeper Batz with a shot, Batz first reaction was quite well, he saved the shot, but didn't see Lewandowski who was there to score the goal from around two meters distance. 3:0. And since three goals did not appear to be enough, Kuba wanted to score the fourth goal in the first half of the game also. After 39 minutes Kuba simply lifted the ball over the by storming Batz and celebrated his second goal of the game. By then, no one was in doubt about the record anymore. The mood was excellent and used the break to get some more beer or bratwurst.

Second Half

To be honest, the second half of the game dabbled a long a bit. Nothing happened on the pitch (oh wait, we hit the goal post and the crossbar again) and Dortmund was busy nursing Freiburgs defense while their players still didn't want to play the party spoilers. So since nothing was going on on the pitch, Freiburgs fans decided that they might as well do something for the mood in case someone was close to falling a sleep. After several attempts they started the laola through the stadium and all the Dortmundfans were happy to play along. Everytime the laola reached the Freiburgfans again, the Süd was applauding happily. Freiburgsfans then decided to sing "never again 2. Bundesliga" and Dortmunds fans were happy to support them in their opinion and happily sang along. This again lead to the fact that Freiburgfans sang along that DOrtmund is "Deutscher Meister". It felt more like a friendly game than a Bundesliga game, but if we're honst- it was perfect this way. Freiburg had nothing to lose and after all this is football and it is a nice thing to know that you can celebrate together as well. A special moment for sure.

After the game

To be honest, the celebrations after the game could have gone a better way. Dortmunds idea of presenting the "Schale" on the weststands, in the middle of all the VIPs, was probably one of the worst ideas Borussia Dortmund ever had. There was nothing festive about that, one could hardly see anything and the videos of the presentation on screen were hardly a good replacement for the actual act. Furthermore fans stormed on the pitch after the end of the game, leading to the fact that the team was once again not able to present the "Schale" to the fans (as last year). Pyro was burned on the Süd during the game as well, causing unrest among those responsible down on the pitch and around the pitch. It was- well- chaotic. And as sad as it is that the team was not able to do the victory lap with the "Schale" due to all the people on the pitch, Dortmund needs to rethink the presentation of the "Schale" as well. It could have gone worse, but it could have gone better as well. The good part of the celebration was the joint celebration with the Freiburgfans again. After storming the pitch, a lot of DOrtmundfans ran straight to the side where the Freiburgfans were standing, singing and dancing together. Dortmundfans sang Freiburgsongs and the other way round. If football was only this perfect all the time. There were a few downers in the celebration of course, but after all, it was a good weekend.
After people had left the stadium that city was filled with black and yellow and a few black and red ones here and there and everyone continued to enjoy this special day until late into night.
After the first game of the season against Hamburg our netradio commentator Boris Rupert said "welcome to the 35th matchday of the Bundesliga season 2010/2012!"...he had no idea how right he had been with that statement. May this feeling never pass, 1909 times thank you to our fantastic Ballspielverein for making it so easy to be a Dortmundfan, for making us so proud to be a Dortmundfan. Thank you for a fantastic season that couldn't have been better. And now: let's go for the Double!!! See you in Berlin everyone.


Stats

Borussia Dortmund: Weidenfeller - Piszczek, Subotic, Hummels, Schmelzer - Gündogan, Kehl - Kuba, Kagawa, Großkreutz - Lewandowski

SC Freiburg: Batz - Mujdza, Ginter, Höhn, Sorg - Schmid, Guédé, Makiadi, Caligiuri - Rosenthal - Freis

Exchanges: 54. Götze for Piszczek, 65. Perisic for Kagawa, 81. Barrios for Kuba - 31. Flum for Rosenthal, 77. Putsila for Freis, 82. Hinkel for Mujdza

Goals: 1:0 Kuba (5., Gündogan), 2:0 Lewandowski (21., Subotic), 3:0 Lewandowski (27., Piszczek), 4:0 Kuba (39., Kagawa)

Referee: Sippel (Munich)


Ida, 07.05.2012



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