Borussia Dortmund entertain Mainz 05 in the Bundesliga today, with the visitors needing to avoid defeat if they are to have a chance of moving off the bottom of the table. Dortmund, meanwhile, are suddenly back in the title picture after a good run of form under Edin Terzic has helped them move to within five points of league leaders Bayern Munich.
Indeed, having been promoted from assistant coach to caretaker manager after the dismissal of Lucien Favre as Dortmund manager in December, Terzic is making a strong case for the job on a full-time basis having won four of his five games in charge so far.BVB had every inch of their attacking swagger back on the way to beating RB Leipzig 3-1 away from home today, with Erling Braut Haaland, Marco Reus and Jadon Sancho putting on a counter-attacking master class after a disappointingly dour first half.
First Haaland raced through before cutting the ball back to Reus, whose delicate touch guided the ball towards Sancho. The England winger seemingly had his birth city’s bus service in mind all along; after waiting so long to score his first league goal of the season, the 20-year-old made it two goals in two games with a decisive strike into the bottom corner.
After Haaland and Dani Olmo both missed good opportunities for either side, the Norway striker capped one of the goals of the season so far having taken five Leipzig opponents out of the game with dazzling feet in the build-up. Emre Can back heeled the ball to Sancho, whose devilishly in-swinging cross laid the ball on a plate for Haaland to power Dortmund into a two-goal lead.
The 20-year-old then wrapped up the three points with his eighth brace of the season for club and country after rounding Peter Gulasci in trademark fashion, before Alexander Sorloth scored a late consolation goal for the hosts. There is little doubt that Mainz have a serious job on their hands to contain the Golden Boy award winner.
Mainz recently appointed their fourth head coach of the campaign in the shape of Bo Svensson, with the former Denmark international potentially a popular choice with the Mainz fanbase having spent seven years at the club as a player between 2007 and 2014.Sentiment will only get Svensson so far, though, with his side deeply embroiled in a relegation battle which, on current form, they appear to have very little chance of getting themselves out of.
Indeed, Mainz’s shortcomings were there for all to see in Svensson’s first game in charge against Eintracht Frankfurt last weekend, with Die Nullfunfer succumbing to a 2-0 loss. However, both goals were courtesy of questionable refereeing decisions, with Andre Silva twice proving the beneficiary from the penalty spot.
Given that Mainz have collected a miserly one point from the last 23 matches in which they have conceded first, Svensson may actually have been mildly pleased with the spirit and improvement of performance his players showed after the half-time interval, too. Jonathan Burkhardt twice came close to levelling proceedings, with Svensson sure to be hoping for more from Robert Quaison and Jean-Phillipe Mateta in the coming weeks.
Elsewhere, FC Koln and Hertha Berlin will both be aiming to bounce back from respective defeats in the Bundesliga when they lock horns at the RheinEnergieStadion this afternoon. The hosts were humiliated by Freiburg in a 5-0 drubbing last time out, whereas Hertha suffered a dismal defeat of their own to newly-promoted Arminia Bielefeld.
Koln ended 2020 in rather solid fashion with just one defeat from their final five, but their start to 2021 will certainly have fans fearing for the remainder of the campaign.
A 1-0 home loss to Augsburg was followed up with a humbling 5-0 defeat at the hands of an in-form Freiburg side, with Ermedin Demirovic, Nicolas Hofler, Roland Sallai, Philipp Lienhart and Lucas Holer all helping themselves to goals.
Still winless and goalless in 2021, Koln have now slipped into the bottom three after Arminia came up trumps in their clash with weekend opponents Hertha, and only four points separate the Billy Goats from the automatic relegation places following Schalke’s first win of the campaign over Hoffenheim.
In fact, Markus Gisdol’s side failed to score for the fourth league game in a row during their thrashing at Freiburg, and the return of Sebastian Andersson cannot come soon enough as Anthony Modeste flatters to deceive up top.
Furthermore, Koln’s only victory of the season on home soil came against VfL Osnabruck in the DFB-Pokal, and the Billy Goats are one of only three teams in the Bundesliga yet to register a league win on familiar territory – the other two being Stuttgart and Mainz 05.
The hosts will welcome a familiar face back to the RheinEnergieStadion in the form of Hertha striker Jhon Cordoba, who returns to the side for whom he struck 37 goals during his three-year stay in North Rhine-Westphalia.
There will be no room for sentiment today, though, as Hertha will be equally determined to rectify last weekend’s mistakes against Arminia, who scraped a 1-0 win courtesy of Reinhold Yabo’s goal just after the hour mark at the SchucoArena.
Saturday’s visitors can now only boast one win from their last five attempts in the German top flight, and any slim chances of a European berth are slowly dissipating as they lay nine points adrift of the top six after 15 matches.
While Koln’s home form leaves a lot to be desired, Hertha will be aiming to put an end to their four-game winless run on the road, but they are now travelling to a ground where they have enjoyed an unparalleled spate of success in recent years.
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