The Champions League final against domestic rival Bayern Munich at Wembley on May 25, 2013 didn’t quite go to plan, but for a team that had won back-to-back German Bundesliga titles against the odds in the previous two seasons, there was still plenty to smile about.
“We will come back, maybe not to Wembley, but we will try to come back to another final,” Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp said after the final whistle.
Fast-forward to February 2015, and the club with such lofty ambitions finds itself bottom of a Bundesliga table it had previously been used to ruling.
Seven of the players who graced the Wembley turf for Dortmund two seasons ago took to the field Wednesday against Augsburg — a game that would prove to be the nadir of a so far disastrous campaign.
Klopp’s men slumped to a 1-0 defeat at home to a side reduced to 10 men, with further salt rubbed into the wound by the fact that Augsburg had never before beaten Dortmund in its history.
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“There are several stadiums with a great atmosphere in the world, but only a few who go wild like [Dortmund’s] when you are [struggling],” Klopp said of the club’s fans in December.
That was until Augsburg.
Reports, meanwhile, have suggested that Dortmund will give Klopp — who to some, given the resources at his disposal, has taken the club as far as he can — until the end of the month to offer up signs of survival.
Realization has struck that Dortmund’s quality alone will not be enough to turn things around and something has to change soon, with the one-month winter break failing to turn around its fortunes.
If it doesn’t, the Dortmund team widely considered too good to go down may end up doing just that.
