“Being 4-0 down at half time in this stadium, in this atmosphere, is hell,” said Schalke manager Domenico Tedesco after his team were blown away by a ferocious Borussia Dortmund in the opening 25 minutes of the 91st Bundesliga Revierderby.
But 72 dramatic minutes later, after defender Naldo’s header had crashed into the back of the Dortmund net to make it 4-4 in the fourth minute of injury time, the Westfalenstadion must have felt more like heaven.
It’s now one win in ten for Dortmund and, as the whistles rained down from the Südtribüne and furious fans attempted to get on the pitch, Dutch manager Peter Bosz’s job looks in serious jeopardy.
“Is blue the new yellow?” football magazine “kicker” had asked ahead of the game, depicting BVB’s famous yellow-and-black logo in blue and white. After this historic comeback - the first time a Bundesliga team has recovered from a 4-0 deficit since Bayern Munich in 1976 – the answer is: perhaps, but Schalke still have a long way to go.
Dortmund defiance
Despite Borussia Dortmund’s awful run of form, the pre-match mood was defiant. Having distributed yellow and black flags across the Südtribüne, BVB ultras unfurled a huge “Borussia Dortmund” banner across the bottom of the terrace before throwing ticker tape and setting off yellow smoke bombs.
But the away end was unusually quiet. Ahead of kick-off, police had intercepted several hundred Schalke ultras who had decided to travel to Dortmund by convoy rather than with the shuttle busses recommended by their club. Checking the cars, police confiscated balaclavas, mixed-martial arts gloves, gum-guards and stolen Borussia Dortmund flags.
The remaining 6,500 Schalke supporters turned their backs in defiance as “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was played over the PA system – a song which isn’t popular with many of Borussia Dortmund’s hardcore either – but otherwise had precious little to sing about in a nightmarish first half.
First, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scrambled home Christian Pulisic’s cross at the back post having started the move himself. Six minutes later, Dortmund doubled their lead through a Benjamin Stambouli own goal. Five minutes after that, Mario Götze powered home a header to make it three, before Raphael Guerreiro volleyed in a fourth after Götze and Aubameyang had scythed open a static Schalke defence.
25 minutes played and it was already a rout. The Yellow Wall taunted their rivals with ironic chants of “Schalke 0-4!” and “You’ll never be German champions!” Tedesco admitted afterwards that it was at this point in the game that he approached the fourth official to ask if they could limit the match to 70 minutes.
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But as devastating as Borussia Dortmund can be going forward (21 goals in their first seven games), they have been plagued by defensive issues and have now conceded 18 in the six games since.
In the space of eleven second-half minutes, quick-fire strikes from Guido Burgstaller and Amine Harit halved the deficit before Aubameyang was sent off for a clumsy challenge. With an extra man, Schalke took control but looked like they may have left it too late until Daniel Caligiuri capped off his dribble into the box with a curled effort into the top corner to pull within one. They couldn’t, could they?
Heaven and hell
When the referee indicated seven minutes of stoppage time, the impossible suddenly seemed inevitable. And when Naldo scored, all hell broke loose in the away end - that feeling of sheer delirium at a late derby-day equaliser at the home of your biggest rivals.
The party atmosphere on the Südtribüne turned to mutiny. Cups of beer flew towards Schalke goalkeeper Ralf Fährmann, who had had the tenacity to give a little bit back to the fans who had abused him for 45 minutes, while a group of fans forced open a gate in the fence and attempted to get on the pitch. When the Dortmund players came to face the wall at full-time, the whistles were deafening.
At the opposite end, the Schalke players and staff danced in front of their delirious supporters for whom the draw clearly felt like a win. Rarely are heaven and hell so close as on derby day.
