Borussia Dortmund and VfL Wolfsburg have met four times so far at the start of the season or after the winter break. There have always been lots of goals: 15 goals were scored in these four matches, and in one of these games the youngest player ever made his debut. In addition so far every Dutch BVB Head Coach has had to face the Wolves for their first game... 

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7. August 2004: Bert van Marwijk takes over from Matthias Sammer - and straight away he has to learn that a football game in Germany doesn't always end in a 'fair' way. Tomas Rosicky creates chance after chance. After half an hour Ewerthon gives it all he has and scores a dream goal from 28 metres to make the score a long overdue 1-0. Just after the break the Brazilian misses a so called 'sitter' to give Black Yellow the lead again and Jan Koller does the same. In the meantime Thomas Brdaric has equalised for the guests from a totally unmarked position to make it 1-1 (43.). The 71 000 spectators are then stunned when Brdaric scores again in the 64. minute. In the end kicker sport magazine makes it 12-3 chances on goal for BVB. However on the scoreboard the result is 1-2 on van Marwijks debut.

 

22. January 2005: at the start of the second half of the season Borussia Dortmund has signed a Polish striker from the Dutch Eredivision: Ebi Smolarek. He comes on in the 46. minute and brings some swing and ideas into  the game, that has been pretty even so far. Jan Koller sets up Florian Kringe, who breaks through on the left and passes the ball inside. Smolarek gets to the ball before Weiser and scores from 6 metres to make it 0-1 (55.). Five minutes later Lars Ricken beats the whole VfL defence with a lob, Koller pushes the ball over the line to make it 0-2. BVB ends the Wolfsburg home record with a 2-1 victory (seven wins in nine matches up to that point).

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6. August 2005: a date for the history  books. Nuri Sahin plays his first Bundesliga game at the age of 16 years and 335 days. As long as the ruling doesn't get changed, this record will never be beaten. Wolfsburg starts the game off very much in control and scores through Diego Klimowicz to make it 1-0 (9.). However Black Yellow turn the tie in the second half and take the  lead 2-1 in the 81. minute after goals by Smolarek and Koller, however Wolfsburg get the equaliser through the Dutchman Kevin Hofland with their next attack - at 5-5 chances on goal a fair result.

28. January 2006: 62 500 spectators watch BVB playing some great football on a heavy pitch, but they soon suffer a shock set-back: Mike Hanke scores to make it 0-1 (13.) with the first dangerous Wolfsburg attack on goal. However Christian Wörns (25.), Wolfsburg bogeyman Smolarek (31.) and Salvatore Gambino (67.) all score to give BVB a 3-2 victory (Klimowicz got one back for Wolfsburg in the 71.minute).

Boris Rupert

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