When Matthias Ginter scored the supposed winning goal against VfL Wolfsburg in injury time, it was really clear for the first time how bad things are for Borussia Mönchengladbach these days. Soccer players, substitute players and members of the functional team celebrated extraordinarily enthusiastically, they sometimes rushed over each other and built cheering pyramids. That goal would have meant more than just a win in a Bundesliga game. It would have been salvation and consolation at the same time. He would have given the Gladbachers the feeling that things weren’t always going to get worse.
But that sense of release and comfort vanished just as quickly as it had come. Because the winning goal received no recognition. A Gladbach foul in the process of creating the move in midfield had invalidated the supposed 3:2. The end result was 2:2. Gladbach’s exuberance dissolved into disappointment. “It was a totally emotional moment,” said Gladbach’s young defender Jordan Beyer, 21, about the jubilation afterwards. He regretfully described this moment as just a brief feeling of salvation “after emotionally difficult days and after all the other bad things happening in the world is”.
Last week, the young Gladbach player Jordi Bongard, 20, from Borussia’s regional league team died in a car accident. When this became known on Thursday, coach Adi Hütter canceled training for the Bundesliga team. Some of the pros knew Bongard well from the youth field. Before the kick-off against Wolfsburg, there were two minutes of silence: one against the war in Ukraine and one in memory of Bongard.
The death of the young footballer was the second sad moment at Borussia within a few weeks after the tearful, exhaustion-related resignation of the popular sports director Max Eberl. These moments went hand in hand with a sporting descent that brought Gladbach to the edge of the relegation zone. Only one of the last six competitive games was won. The advantage over the next opponent VfB Stuttgart on Saturday evening is eight points, the advantage over the next opponent Hertha BSC on the following Saturday is four points. “These games have it all,” prophesies attacker Jonas Hofmann.
The action around the former Gladbacher Max Kruse triggered a discussion that can hardly be properly concluded
Gladbach is in a complicated phase of rediscovery and self-discovery. “We’ve lost each other a bit lately,” says midfielder Christoph Kramer in a kicker podcast. The club is crumbling in every nook and cranny. Everyone involved is trying to put the pieces back together in a makeshift way. To that end, a win against Wolfsburg would have been helpful. But as it was, one had to emphasize as a healing factor that one caught up a 0:2 deficit and at least reached this 2:2. The tie was deserved, but also a bit flattering, because referee Tobias Reichel and his video assistant Günter Perl had denied Wolfsburg a penalty in the 66th minute that would have given the visitors a 3-1 lead.
The action around the former Gladbacher Max Kruse triggered a discussion that can hardly be properly concluded. It’s opinion against opinion. Kruse, who was in possession of the ball, was clearly hit on the ankle in the Gladbach penalty area by Gladbach’s Kouadio Koné, but didn’t let himself fall, instead continuing to run in an attempt to make the move a success. But he quickly lost the ball and only then let himself fall with a demonstrative grip on his ankle.
In midfield, the referees handle it like this: After a foul, they initially allow an advantage; if the advantage is of no use, they call the foul afterwards. The scene with Kruse should have been handled the same way. But Reichel refused the penalty and Perl didn’t intervene. “I wonder what they’re doing in the Cologne basement,” Kruse grumbled, “it can’t be the fair play idea that I fall straight away; then I always have to fall straight away and there are penalties.”
At the end of a highly emotional game, however, there was a conciliatory atmosphere in the dressing room of Gladbach’s Borussia Park. Kruse showed everyone who met him exactly where Koné had met him, although he smiled and hugged. And Sebastiaan Bornauw apologized for celebrating in front of the Gladbach fans after his goal to make it 2-0 – and thus triggered unexpected anger in the otherwise gentle goalkeeper Yann Sommer, who in turn saw yellow. In the end, everyone forgave everyone that day. Everyone involved felt that sometimes there are more important things than football.
