BVB playing themselves

What do SC Paderborn’s Kruse, Hünemeier, Amedick, Bakalorz, Vrancic and Ducksch have in common? They all have a connection to our BVB being either on loan (Ducksch) or former players of Borussia Dortmund (the rest). A mini Borussia one could say!

Mini is the expression you could use on many occasions when talking about SC Paderborn. Paderborn, a town with around 150,000 inhabits made it to the Bundesliga. Paderborn gets its name from a small river ‘Pader’ which is born in Paderborn (born is an old German expression for spring). The river lasts just 4 kilometres, one of the shortest in Germany! Facing the facts about the football club SC Paderborn, it is one of the smallest that have ever been to the Bundesliga. A real ‘David’: smallest budget, smallest stadium (room for 15,000 people), smallest worth of players, etc. You could add up some more points to that list that express the tininess of this club. But still, there is a lot of respect to pay behind all that and the casting shadow of boringness around Paderborn: They did it! Even with all odds against them, they were able to qualify for the Bundesliga. Most of other teams seem like Goliath against them and just like David, they beat them. With courage, strategy and a strong will, they made it to the top league in Germany. Their coach Breitenreiter lets them play an attacking football with a strong pressing and an outrageous pace from time to time. If you let them, they can hurt you, ask Hamburg, Hannover, Frankfurt or Berlin. No one would have thought that they are going to be ninth after a third of the season.

All this talk about David fighting the bigger teams, all these former players, their style, it all reminds a bit of our BVB a few years ago when we rocked Real Madrid against all odds playing outstanding football. It seems we are playing ourselves on this match. And there is even more truth in that: The last weeks we have mostly played against ourselves, our minds, our thoughts and our mistakes. ‘Two face’ was used to express what happened. One of our faces playing against the other. Now, after a lucky but well deserved win against Gladbach it seems like the better face has a head start compared to the ugly one. Time to improve our record and gather some points against all odds: Wolfgang Stark. The referee who somehow does not like us and always makes weird decisions when refereeing matches of Borussia Dortmund. Just remember that ball hitting Schmelzer’s knee getting him sent off and giving Wolfsburg a penalty! Stark wasn’t allowed to blow the whistle in Dortmund matches for more than a year, officially, because the DFB needed to lessen the pressure on him. Now he is back in the smallest stadium, of course.

Nonetheless, it’s so good that the international break is over and Borussia is back on the pitch. And again we’ll beat the ugly face!

Possible line-ups:

SC Paderborn:
Kruse – Heinloth, Strohdiek, Hünemeier, Brückner – Ziegler – Koc, Bakalorz, Vrancic, Stoppelkamp – Kachunga

Borussia Dortmund:
Weidenfeller – Durm, Ginter, Subotic, Piszczek – Kehl, Bender - Reus, Kagawa, Mkhitaryan – Aubameyang

Seb, 21.11.2014