Football: Champions League: Borussia Dortmund’s last night for nostalgics

Brave and crisis-tested as the members of Borussia Dortmund are, they quickly had a few positive words ready when there was actually little more than bitter pain to be felt on the spring night at Wembley. In hardly any review of the Champions League final against Real Madrid was the term “pride” that the players and those around the team said they felt after they had just lost 2-0. It wasn’t just sports director Sebastian Kehl who had the feeling that he was “super close” to a historic coup. Only one last small step was missing to immortality, as is often claimed in the football world, which is full of superlatives, when it comes to the really, really big titles.

Marcel Sabitzer had already cried bitterly on the pitch, others stared ahead with pale faces. “It hurts,” said Captain Emre Can, summing up the situation. The sadness was all too understandable, because unless a big miracle happens, an opportunity like this won’t come back so quickly. At the same time, another feeling was also present, an astonishment at a mysterious force that the English “Sun” described on Sunday as “the black magic of the men in white” and to which BVB had fallen victim. A magic from Real Madrid that was actually reminiscent of the ruthlessness of Harry Potter’s opponent Voldemort.

The fact that there was no intention behind the Spanish cruelty was of little comfort. Defeats against Real Madrid this season automatically contain the stuff of nightmares. Like so many other teams before them, Dortmund had the feeling that they were only a small step away from the big coup, in this case from the fulfillment of one of the sweetest football dreams of all. Real seemed full, sluggish, tired, staggering, ready to fall from the summit only to triumph in the end.

Looking back, Dortmund’s surprisingly clear superiority seemed like a big bluff. Niclas Füllkrug hit the post (24th) after Karim Adeyemi had just missed an even better opportunity in a one-on-one duel against Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois (21st). “If we make it 1-0, we have a very good chance of pulling it off,” said Nico Schlotterbeck, although Real found good answers to their initial weaknesses in the second half and therefore won by no means with luck.

The Spaniards once again took advantage of the opponent’s one small mistake when Toni Kroos hit a perfectly executed corner to Daniel Carvajal, who had evaded his opponent Ian Maatsen and headed the score 1-0 (74′). Poor Maatsen, who was on loan from Chelsea and whom BVB would like to sign on a permanent basis, then produced a bad pass that made Real’s second goal through Vinicius Junior possible (83′).

Real’s coach Carlo Ancelotti once again made the appropriate fine-tuning during the half-time break, letting his team stand deeper, while Borussia no longer received any helpful impulses. Substitutions have been making this team weaker rather than better for a long time, even if, like on Saturday evening, no important player was missing from the squad. Its quality needs to be improved across the board. Substitutes Marco Reus, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Sébastien Haller and Donyell Malen did not manage a single dangerous action. “It was a difficult game for us, especially in the first half,” said Ancelotti, but: “The final is about winning, not about playing.”

His Dortmund counterpart Edin Terzic had already formulated a very similar sentence before the game, with the difference that Real has adhered to this principle for more than 40 years of European competition, while a circle of futility is closing in Dortmund. In 2013, when they last reached the final of this competition, club boss Hans-Joachim Watzke declared BVB the “second lighthouse” in German football alongside FC Bayern. Instead, a phase of Munich dominance followed, in which Marco Reus became the face of Dortmund’s unfulfilled dreams.

Reus played his last game for the club he loved in London, and Mats Hummels may also be leaving the club. After he criticized coach Edin Terzic with harsh words in the week before the final, further cooperation is hardly imaginable. Watzke has now handed over sporting responsibility to Lars Ricken; he will probably have to decide the Hummels case.

The premier class will be played in a new format next season, and in 2025 Dortmund will also take part in the Club World Cup, which has been expanded to last more than four weeks. And the new sponsor, weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall, will always be there, which will noticeably change the club’s image. In this respect, this night in London was once again something for nostalgics who wanted to say goodbye. Of this fascinatingly original BVB, which emerged during the years under coach Jürgen Klopp, but of which there won’t be much left after the summer.

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