A year in review
April: The “Temple” celebrates 40th anniversary – Gala against Real Madrid
The “Temple” on the Strobelallee celebrated its 40th anniversary. It is the most ‘pure’ football stadium in all of Germany and has, despite many rebuilds and re-fashionings, not lost any of its ability to fascinate and enthral, quite the contrary, indeed, because nowhere else in Europe do so many people experience such emotion and intensity in such numbers.
BVB president Dr. Reinhard Rauball said, “From the very first minute this stadium captured my heart. The home games in this place have always been and still are after 40 years quite exceptional, notably in lean times when the terraces were not quite as packed as they are nowadays.”
However, Borussia Dortmund were not able to celebrate the anniversary at home but had to travel to an equally famous stadium, namely the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, home of Real Madrid to take on the hosts in the UEFA Champions League quarter-final. And there, unlike the previous year, there was to be no celebration as Real were removed from the competition, rather a rather comprehensive defeat.
In the first leg after just under three minutes the balloon of anticipation suffered its first prick as Bale slotted the opening goal before Isco further deflated expectations with a second on 27 minutes. But after the break Borussia turned up the wick and how! Klopp: “We created a lot of chances and could have scored four or five.” But Madrid’s goal was impregnable with two Mkhitaryan efforts cleared at the last moment and Reus, too, denied on 65 and 77 minutes. With Ronaldo adding a third the return leg would have to be taken on facing the wall of a 0-3 reverse. Klopp: “We are not in the best place to call all to arms and shout “Charge!” but this quarter final is now made up of two separate games. The one here and the one in Madrid.”
And the return leg did, indeed, prove remarkable despite ending in defeat. Eliminated but with thunderous applause ringing in their ears. If you have to go out of a competition then there was no better way than this. Marco Reus, the scorer of the two goals, said, “We were world class in the first half.” The 2-0 defeat was the only one Real suffered on their way to eventually winning the 2013-14 Champions League title.
A weakened side played heroically but for them there was to be no tomorrow. Klopp was later to describe his team’s performance as the “blueprint” for any team chasing a 3-0 deficit as they had pegged back two of the three goals required after just half an hour. A sad yet so proud Hans-Joachim Watzke reflected that “We took Real Madrid to the edge of the abyss but just couldn’t push them over the edge.”
It was remarkable to experience just what the combined forces of players and fans can achieve. Mats Hummels was quick to thank the fans for their role, “That was one of the most amazing atmospheres I have ever experienced. We contrived an evening, that is us and the supporters together, that I shall never forget and in so doing we almost achieved one of the most remarkable stories in the history of football.” But at the end, whilst they had notched up their 100th European Cup win, they had not completed that remarkable story.
April was to provide another big night of football for the Black n Yellows as the Signal Iduna Park housed a sell-out 80,645 gathered to witness the DFB Cup semi-final against VfL Wolfsburg. The game had everything; pace, passion, class, shots hitting the bar, goals disallowed (one for Perisic, one for Lewandowski) but ultimately and with no little luck, BVB battled their way past Wolfsburg into their fifth German cup final. Both teams went at it from the first minute. By half-time Mkhitaryan and Lewandowski had taken two of the few chances BVB had managed to create to give the home side a 2-0 lead while at the other end Weidenfeller raged against the VfL storm to guide his team to the final in Berlin.
Quite apart from coping with the immense mental and physical demands of the two cup competitions, April saw the team doing great things in the league as well with four games earning ten points. Lewandowski and Reus goals secured a decidedly fortunate 2-1 over Wolfsburg before a fine performance saw them win 3-0 in Munich (Mkhitaryan, Reus and Hofmann). A somewhat careless 4-2 win over Mainz (Jojic, Lewandowski, Piszczek, Reus) followed that before a come from behind 2-2 draw with Leverkusen (Kirch, Reus) rounded off the month in the league. That all added up to BVB securing second place with two matchdays remaining.
Also that month Ilkay Gündogan and Nuri Sahin extended their contracts, however that joy was tempered by sadness at the news that Alfred Niepieklo, a BVB champion, had passed away at the age of 86.