"What a thing," says Norbert Dickel. The Dortmund stadium announcer stands on the pitch in bright sunshine, just as eagerly anticipating as most of the more than 80,000 who came to Germany's largest football stadium this Saturday. The thing he's talking about is the story of this season, the nine-point gap the Borussians have to Bayern in November, and now, if you will, maybe even the story of the decade.

Christian Kamp

Sports editor.

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With their own victory, BVB can become champions again after ten years of Bavarian monoculture, the whole city, yes, the whole country is waiting for it, at least the part that does not hold it with the people of Munich, people, it is said, have spent the night in sleeping bags in front of pubs to get a place in front of the screen, the "Süd" shows a banner with the handle to the bowl: "It's in our hands."

In the end, however, from Dortmund's point of view, it is the story of a hellish journey as it is written in the book.

When referee Marco Fritz blows his whistle, the players in yellow sink to the ground, the "Süd", trembling for a long time, is at this moment the greatest still life of German football, motionless. It's just football, but it feels like a funeral – and that's what it is, as far as Dortmund's championship dream is concerned. The 2-2 draw against FSV Mainz means that for the eleventh year in a row, the trophy will go to Munich, the copy will be presented in Cologne, while the original will leave Dortmund without having accomplished anything. There are moments when the audience tries to cheer them up, but in vain.

The shock is deep in Dortmund

What can we say: On this day, which should have been such a big one, Dortmund are not in masterful shape from the start, and the fact that great luck beckons in between is due to the fact that Cologne, like Deus ex machina, is reporting a goal to equalize FC. But the football god is not a Dortmunder on this day, perhaps also because BVB disappoints him.

In any case, this thing runs differently from the beginning than Dickel and Dortmund had imagined. When the ball is in the BVB goal for the second time after 24 minutes, the Borussians have already missed a penalty and Bayern are also leading 1-0 in Cologne, everything looks like a disaster. Where at first there was boundless self-assurance and then, after the 0:1, still defiance and optimism, uncertainty spreads - an uncertainty that seems to be stuck in the legs of the Dortmund team throughout the game. Even later, in the second half, it is more the courage of desperation than the class of a champion that the Borussians throw into the balance, even if it is still enough for two goals by Guerreiro (69th) and Süle (90th+5).

Twenty minutes after the game, when they are halfway back on their feet, the Dortmund professionals and their coach Edin Terzic are bid farewell with encouragement. But behind this support, which the black and yellow community is reassuring each other, there is a shock from which this football city will not recover anytime soon.