Aaaand once again: Good night, Blue-White!

What a weird week this has been. The excitement and joy of Wednesday evening and the victory against Bayern were just about to fade, there comes the derby. So instead of the tiredness that usually follows the huge amount of emotions that accompany such a victory, here we are again, excited and eager to win against an admittedly pretty strong S04. Well, maybe not only to win, but to degrade Blue-White (remember the game in first round?). Winnig the derby almost feels as good as winnig the championship!

Before the game

As already mentioned, Dortmund had a tough, intensive and exhausting game against Bayern on Wednesday. Although Jürgen Klopp claims that it would have even been possible to play against GE the morning after, the boys needed recovery. With Subotic not able to play, hopes went out to Santana. And yes, a lot of us still hoped Mario Götze would celebrate his comeback against Blue-White.
On the other hand, S04 had a game against Nuremberg on Wednesday as well. In contrast to the BVB, there was not much recovery needed there as they had lost 4:1. Indeed, they've played rather shitty - but who knows, maybe they were just saving their power for Saturday and the important fight against us. In fact, coach Huub Stevens put five new players into the team that hadn't played on Wednesday: Uchida, Metzelder, Fuchs, Moritz, and Farfan. All in all, Blue-White right now is number 3 in the German league. Not too bad. Let's hope Borussia Mönchengladbach, 4th, will get ahead of them before the end of the season.
Also before the game, some supporters of our Ballspielverein destroyed parts of the visitor block which brought us lots and lots of cheery policemen having a strict eye on the block during the game.
The blue-white supporters, on the other hand, used thunderer whistles to boo us.
Get ready for the 80th derby!

First half

Here we go! After only 30 seconds played, Manni Bender has the first mind-blowing chance to score. Unfortunately, there is also Unnerstall who wards off the ball. Good start! Indeed, it is the beginning of 90 minutes of speed, fighting and suspense. I have to admit once again that GE is not playing that bad, and they have their chances as well. In fact, they score in the 9th minute with a little unintended help by Kagawa, who unluckily deflects Farfan's shot with his head and makes it an undefensible one for Weidenfeller. There's not much worse than S*****e04 gaining the lead.
As we know the boys of our Ballspielverein, there will be an answer to this one. 8 really, really long minutes later, there is Piszczek with a beautiful, almost impossible goal after a corner kick. This goal is even as nice to look at as the one Lewandowski scored against Bayern on Wednesday, you can look at it again, again and again. Actually you can see how much Piszczek wants the ball to land in the goal, and his curled shot hits the far corner. He and the other boys just burst with celebrations, and so does everybody else in black and yellow.
All in all, the game isn't a really nice one. It's fighting, and as I said both teams are fighting with a lot of speed, so we have lots of bad passes and also lots of fouls. Unfortunately, none of the players of Blue-White was injured. Twice during this first half, Blue-White wanted a penalty. Let's put it this way: Anyone who dishes out must be able to take it. And anyways, we have Roman Weidenfeller, the penalty killer!
GE was able to have a lot of corner kicks (10:2 so far!), which were all more or less dangerous. Towards the end of the first half, especially after minute 42 when Huntelaar had a big chance to gain the lead again but was too stupid to make use of it, everyone just needed a break. Team and supporters, everywhere. This was intensive!

Second half

Manni Bender needed to be replaced by Sebastian Kehl from the start of the second half, because as you know, Manni is a machine but he also needs a rest sometimes (and actually had problems with his back). Apart from that, nothing changed but the s**t in blue and white seemed to want a victory. There were chances by Huntelaar (47./54.) and Papadopoulos (50.) that made our lives hard from the beginning on. Then, all hearts in black and yellow stopped for a second because Gündogan (56.) almost scored from 16 meters distance. Well, almost! And hearts stopped again, because we have Draxler running towards Weidenfeller with nobody who is able to stop him. Some journalists even claimed GE had deserved a goal by that time, but come on, when has S04 ever deserved a goal? But let's come to the really interesting and important minute of the game: 63. Remember, Blue-White is doing quite well and we're under pressure. There's a corner kick for Borussia and there is Kehl - and then there's the ball, in the goal! We're leading! With a little help from Kehl's friend Metzelder, the loser, the captain brings the ball right into the goal, in front of the Blue-White block. In your face!
This was it about the blue-white eagerness to win. Pretty shocked, they were not really able to put us under pressure again for the rest of the game. Kuba and Santana's head (65./76.) on the other hand were not able to seal the win and free us from all sorrows and pains. What a relief when the whistle was blown!

Is there anything left to say? Again, a glorious week. 25 (!) matches not being beaten. Three matches to come. You can almost smell the championship. Supporters start making plans for the celebrations. But here's the most important thing: "Die Nummer 1, die Nummer 1, die Nummer 1 im Pott sind WIR!"

Stats

Winner: Weidenfeller - Piszczek, Santana, Hummels, Schmelzer - Gündogan, Bender (46. Kehl) - Blaszczykowski (81. Perisic), Kagawa, Grosskreutz (89. Owomoyela) - Lewandowski

Loser: Unnerstall - Uchida (86. Marica), Papadopoulos, Metzelder, Fuchs - Moritz (68. Höger), Jones - Farfan, Raul, Draxler (71. Pukki) - Huntelaar

Goals: 1:0 Farfan (9th), 1:1 Piszczek (17th), 1:2 Kehl (63rd)

Spectators: 61.673 (sold-out gym)

Corner kicks: 13:5

Referee: Manuel Gräfe (Berlin)

Bookings: Farfan, Fuchs, Jones (indeed, the guy has collected 12 yellow cards by now). Borussia: Kehl and Schmelzer.

Fully deserved red cards, unfortunately not noticed by the referee: Farfan. Fuchs. And Jones.

Marina, 15.04.2012

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