09.02.2010

One view

There are often many different ways of looking at a game of football, and this, after all, is much of its appeal. The protagonists involved in yesterday's defeat in Mainz, however, were united in their post-match assessment.

When the opposition coach and players are not short of compliments for your performance after a game, that's a good sign when you first look at it. But when they do it with a smile on their lips, the discerning football fan will know that, as Marcellus said, "something is rotten in the state of Denmark". For in Bo Svensson it was a Dane, and a former Borussia player at that, who turned the game on its head with his goal in the 44th minute. Borussia were the busier side, the better side, for virtually the entire game. "Out of ten games like that you normally win eight, one ends in a draw and you lose once. And that was the fate we suffered yesterday, which is obviously very hard to take," Roel Brouwers told journalists at the training ground today, summing up the mood in the camp.

Yet aside from the fact that the better team doesn't always win, football has still more natural laws. One of them is pace at which things happen, especially when only five days lie between two Bundesliga matches. While sometimes you wish you could have a bit more time to savour the sweet taste of victory, as after last week's 4-3 success over Werder Bremen, this time it suits the Borussia players down to the ground that they will have an opportunity to do better, especially when it comes to taking chances, as early as Friday when they entertain Nürnberg (kick-off: 2030 CET). And to make sure they are well prepared the players will not be given a day off this week.

In Karim Matmour und Gal Alberman head coach Michael Frontzeck was able to welcome back two players to full training today who have been unavailable for selection for different reasons.