Borussia Dortmund surrendered the Bundesliga after embracing it in one of the most dramatic days in memory in the outcome of the German championship. They only had to beat Mainz in their field, who had just lost four consecutive games with 13 goals against. The rival was a strainer. A team that was not competing for anything, defended by a beardless goalkeeper, Finn Dahmen. Dortmund was accompanied by 80,000 fans at the legendary Westfalenstadion, the hottest stadium east of the Rhine, the epicenter of a concentration of fans on a pilgrimage to the great celebration. Everything was conducive to a carnival. But after 15 minutes, the central Hanche-Olsen headed the 0-1 at the near post, after a corner kick. It was Hanche-Olsen’s first goal in a two-year career. The beginning of the nightmare in the Ruhr and the alirón in the Cologne stadium, scene of the conquest of Bayern’s 11th consecutive league title, winning 1-2, with a goal from Jamal Musiala in the 89th minute.
2
Gregor Kobel, Marius Wolf (Youssoufa Moukoko, min. 45), Julian Ryerson (Modeste, min. 79), Hummels, Niklas Süle, Malen (Gio Reyna, min. 62), Karim Adeyemi (Marco Reus, min. 39), Emre Can, Raphael Guerreiro, Brandt (Julien Duranville, min. 62) and Sébastian Haller
2
Finn Dahmen, Bell, Edimilson Fernandes, Andreas Hanche-Olsen, Leandro Barreiro Martins, Kohr, Anthony Caci, Aarón Martín, Anton Stach (Aymane Barkok, min. 79), Karim Onisiwo (Suliman Mustapha, min. 91) and Lee Jae- Sung (Marcus Ingvartsen, min. 66)
goals 0-1 min. 15: Andreas Hanche-Olsen. 0-2 min. 23: Karim Onisiwo. 1-2 min. 68: Raphael Guerreiro. 2-2 min. 96: Niklas Sule.
Referee Marco Fritz
Yellow cards Raphael Guerreiro (min. 40) and Edimilson Fernandes (min. 71)
Since the 2009-10 season, a Bundesliga with fewer points has not been won. Barely 71 added Bayern in its most agonizing championship. Champion but in crisis. Before the conclusion of the meeting, the Bavarian club leaked the news: Oliver Kahn, the president, and Hasan Salihamidzic, the sports director, had been dismissed. It is not that they participated in a party that they did not deserve. After 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, Herbert Hainer, head of the social branch of the richest sports institution in Germany, confirmed the change at the top of the sports administration. Jan-Christian Dreesen, until now economic vice president, was named president in Kahn’s place. It was Dereesen who delivered the Meisterschale, the champion’s plate, to the players.
“The club has prohibited me from traveling to the match in Cologne and attending the championship celebration,” Kahn lamented in the tabloid Bild.
The institutional earthquake thus came three days ahead of the scheduled date. Next Tuesday, the meeting of the Supervisory Board is expected, headed by the honorable Uli Hoeness, a shadow strategist of a club that last summer was called to revolutionize European football and now is bogged down in search of direction.
Markus Söder, Minister President of Bavaria, proclaimed it a month ago, with the exuberance worthy of the Oktoberfest crier: “Dortmund is too stupid to be German champion.”
The statement inflamed the club’s supporters from the Ruhr area. Nearly half a million fans gathered in Dortmund this Saturday to accompany the team on the last day of the Bundesliga. They arrived with a two-point advantage over Bayern: 70 to 68. They caressed revenge with their fingertips. They only needed a win against the haggard Mainz, while Bayern seemed doomed to a sterile game in Cologne. All at 3:30 p.m. The warm afternoon. The blossomed lindens. Poplars in hatching. Dortmund’s party was full until the game began and he ran over the crowd with a reality football hammer. The last day of competition distributed sticks on all fronts.
The tension paralyzed the Dortmund players with the same dynamics that freed those of Mainz. With nothing to lose, the visitors fanned out in search of adventure. They left gaps uncovered. Empty meadows that the troubled Can, Brandt, Guerreiro, Malen and Adeyeni, eager to climb to the top of a feat that exceeded their aspirations, were unable to take advantage of without more plays than those that led to crosses for the tank Haller. The hero Haller, so many times decisive, became a stopper on the key day. Haller’s nerves were never more evident than in the penalty he missed in the 18th minute. A VAR gift that could even the score. It was not so. Six minutes later, Karim Onisiwo made it 2-0 before the languid look of Hummels, at 34 years old, rigid, slow, ghostly.
The Union Berlin, to the Champions League
Dortmund came back to 2-2. In the last minute. No time for another demarcation. Without Jude Bellingham, injured, with a diminished Reus, without as much football as drive. Swept away by the Westfalenstadion crowd, rather than a brilliant game. Between chants, to scare away the terror, while in Cologne Bayern finished off their game with a goal from Musiala, who entered the last quarter of an hour to score the final 1-2. When in Bavaria they began to resign themselves to a blank year, the first in a decade, the Meisterschale, the silver-plated plate, symbol of the champion, was raised to the Rhineland sky again, the eleventh in a row, by Captain Kimmich.
In other orders of the classification, Hertha and Schalke descended; Union Berlin and Leipzig qualified for the Champions League; for the Europa League, Freiburg; and for the Conference League, Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen.
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