Yellow submarine

In the town where I was born
Lived a man who loved the game
And he told us of his life
In the days of hope and faith

So we walked on to the sun
Till we found a sea of green
And we lived within the waves
In our yellow football dream

And our friends are all aboard
Many more of them live next door
And the team begins to play

Full speed ahead, Mr. Klopp, full speed ahead
Full speed ahead it is, Sir
Get the ball, score the goal
Aye-aye, Sir, aye-aye
Captain, captain

And we lived a life of ease
Every one of us had all we need
Sky of blue and sea of green
In our yellow football dream

But something changed and now we’re all
Full of fear and tears and fall
The sky gets dark and black with clouds
We sink into the sea of doubts

We now live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine

Ok, I have a way of being overdramatic, I know. In fact, it is just another lost game, just another day we failed to get out of the devil’s circle we are in at the moment.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

But despite the heartbreaking defeat in Cologne, there is some hope and light at the end of the tunnel, no question about that. With Reus, Gündogan and Mkhitaryan back and with Kagawa in quite a goods shape already, we have seen some extraordinary technical skills on the pitch yesterday. Especially Reus and Gündogan were surprisingly close to their own selves from before the injuries. Even though Gündogan still has a way to go in defence, in the offence that already looked a lot like him.
Our creative four made the attacks look a lot more dynamic and dangerous than for example in the game against Hamburg. We actually got our fair share of chances this time. Now we only have to find the courage and faith again to really shoot on the goal after these great combinations. Yesterday in Cologne, it was more like “you take the ball” – “no, I don’t want it, you take it” – “but I can’t shoot, you take it” until the opponent finally said “ok, if you don’t want, I take it”.
So, that’s the attacking part, this shouldn’t be too difficult to solve on the long term. A few trainings, a few goals and all is back to normal. I even have hope that this tiki-taka attacks have a chance to come back in the long term as a midfield with Gündogan, Reus, Kagawa and Mkhitaryan is so full of creativity and football skills, it sounds almost too good to be true!
Immobile scored a Bundesliga goal, that should boost his confidence little by little. And with this strong midfield behind him, he will score more and more in the future, gaining more confidence and finally become the attacker we all know he can be. I’m not one of the people who say that he is not able to replace Lewandowski. He just has to do it in his way and he will probably need some more time to find that way.

But there is another problem that remains: the defence. To be honest, I’m not so confident about that part. We have our defence almost complete already since the beginning of the season. We have four really strong centre backs, none of which looks any close to being in good shape at the moment. Hummels being the worst of them as he has the highest expectations to carry on his shoulders.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, there are also people like Weidenfeller who suddenly begin with their long-forgotten slapstick moments again. There is little to train about that. A goalgetter can get confidence by being encouraged to try, a defender will lose more confidence with every time it goes even slightly wrong.
There is one statistic from the game yesterday that shows that as no other. Cologne shot on our goal 5 times, we shot 16 times on theirs. The fact that they scored twice out of the five, is really our own fault. Cologne hadn’t scored one goal at home the whole season. But we almost forced them to.

How to go on

So, what now? I guess we just have to go on by taking one game after the other. There is no need anymore to look at the table. Nothing is lost yet – except for the Championship – and we do not have to worry too much about the lower part of the standing either as there are teams far worse than we are, most certainly in the long term.
We have our next game on Wednesday in Istanbul. Europe was a lot different than Bundesliga that season and there is a big chance to win that game.
After that, we have a difficult program in front of us with almost only teams that are in good shape. But maybe, just maybe, that’s good for us as it will lower people’s expectations and the pressure will be less.
The fans have shown throughout the game - and not only this one - that they will be there no matter what. The away stand was singing all through the 90 minutes and afterwards. The team most certainly doesn't have to go the way on their own. We are all in this together!
And in the end, we will see if the water is already flooding the cabin of our submarine or if it has just submerged to watch the enemy, ready to attack at any time.

Statistics

Cologne: Horn - Olkowski, Mavraj, Wimmer Hector - Vogt, Lehmann - Risse, Halfar, Svento - Zoller
Borussia Dortmund: Weidenfeller - Piczcek, Sokratis, Hummels, Großkreutz - Gündogan, Kehl - Mkhitaryan, Kagawa, Reus - Immobile
Substitutions: 68th Aubameyang for Mkhitaryan, 75th Ramos for Immobile, 90th Subotic for Gündogan - 57th Peszko for Svento, 64th Osako for Halfar, 76th Matuschyk for Zoller
Goals: 1:0 Vogt (40th, Risse), 1:1 Immobile (48th, Reus), 2:1 Zoller (74th, Osako)
Referee: Fritz (Korb/Württ.),
Yellow cards: - Mkhitaryan, Hummels, Sokratis
Spectators: 50.000 (sold-out)

Nadja, 19.10.2014