Black-yellow wreck back from Napoli

Gosh, what a nightmare evening we experienced Wednesday in Napoli at the start of this season's Champions League. Borussia Dortmund lost the match, a defender, their goalie and coach. With this emotional turn-down BVB is now on their way to Nuremberg for Bundesliga duty.

We all had those terrific moments of last season in mind. A sizzling hot black-yellow team that marauded through Europe. Being runners-up of this competition our supporters hoped for a never-ending story. But as soon as the draw for the group stage was done, it became clear that with Olympique Marseille, SSC Napoli and Arsenal FC of London three strong teams were waiting. Especially the opening match in Napoli was regarded as a really tough one. And indeed, Napoli won 2-1 with a nice style of attacking and counter-attacking football while Borussia Dortmund appeared restrained. An early goal by Higuain, an injury of Hummels and a red card for Weidenfeller just before halftime early erased every hope. In the end Borussia Dortmund was lucky to get away with 2-1.

Nonetheless Borussia won their first 7 matches over all competitions. So this first defeat isn't easy to take but no indicator for the near future. We are still leading the Bundesliga with perfect 15 out of 15 points. The team is now travelling to Nuremberg and facing 1. FCN, a team that collected only 3 points till now. Surely, looking at the statistics, this should be an easy task, but we don't know how the team will cope with the Napoli nightmare.

To pile up the mess we also have some new injured players. Mats Hummels got back problems during the match and is doubtful. Sokratis got a foot contusion but their is some hope that he will be ready for Saturday.

So Roman Weidenfeller, red-carded in Napoli, will start as our goalie. In front of him Großkreutz, Subotic, Sokratis and Schmelzer will make up the flat-four. If Hummels recovers quickly he might replace Sokratis. Sahin and Bender will play in holding midfield as Gündogan and Kehl are injured. Sole striker Lewandowski will be backed by Reus, Mkhitaryan and either Blaszczykowski or Aubameyang.

Nuremberg, who finished last season on a safe 10th spot, will have to do better than the last matches. Last weekend they were the first team that lost points to newly promoted Eintracht Braunschweig. Adding to that Braunschweig was even the better side during those 90 minutes. So coach Wiesinger has still some work to do. The Franconians will start with experienced goalie Raphael Schäfer behind Chandler, Nilsson, Pogatetz and Plattenhardt. Wiesinger will field a massive midfield with Stark, newly signed Hasebe, Drmic, Kiyotake and Hlousek. Young striker Daniel Ginczek will start up front. Most of our supporters will remember Ginczek as he is from our youth programm. After some loaning spells he was now sold to Nuremberg, were he seems to start regularly.

Match day 6: You vs. the editors

We are going into another round of our little game where you have the chance to beat us in predicting the upcoming Bundesliga match day. This time Mark from Edinburgh gave his predictions (first column) against my own predictions (second column):

Borussia Mönchengladbach - Eintracht Braunschweig 3-0 / 2-0

Hanover 96 - FC Augsburg 2-1 / 2-0

VfL Wolfsburg - 1899 Hoffenheim 2-1 / 2-2

1. FC Nuremberg - Borussia Dortmund 1-3 / 0-2

1. FSV Mainz 05 - Bayer Leverkusen 1-2 / 1-1

Hamburger SV - Werder Bremen 2-1 / 2-0

Sch*lke 04 - Bayern München 1-3 / 1-1

SC Freiburg - Hertha BSC 1-1 / 1-0

VfB Stuttgart - Eintracht Frankfurt 1-1 / 0-1

Match informations

1. FC Nuremberg: Schäfer - Chandler, Nilsson, Pogatetz, Plattenhardt - Stark, Hasebe, Drmic, Kiyotake, Hlousek - Ginczek
Coach: Michael Wiesinger

Borussia Dortmund: Weidenfeller - Großkreutz, Subotic, Sokratis (Hummels), Schmelzer - Bender, Sahin - Aubameyang (Blaszczykowski), Mkhitaryan, Reus - Lewandowski
Coach: Jürgen Klopp

Referee: Kircher

Venue: Grundig-Stadion

Kick off: 3.30 pm CET

jonam, 20.09.2013

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