Icon: enlarge
Jadon Sancho carries the ball to the center, in the background the people of Cologne celebrate
Photo: LEON KUEGELER / AFP
At Borussia Dortmund they are puzzling again.
How did you lose to a potentially so much worse team?
The 1: 2 against Cologne was one of those games under Lucien Favre that went in the wrong direction and in which Dortmund simply couldn't find any means.
It was like that on the second matchday in Augsburg, also on the seventh matchday against Bayern Munich.
The difference: the bankruptcy against Augsburg was feared, that against Bayern was feared and expected.
The defeat against Cologne came out of nowhere after the strong performances last week.
It's not what a club like BVB strives for, but on Saturday they would have been at least halfway satisfied with a draw.
But they can no longer draw in Dortmund, they are caught in extremes.
Since the 3: 3 draw against RB Leipzig on December 17, 2019, there have been 27 games: victory or defeat.
Neither sporting director Michael Zorc nor captain Marco Reus nor the experienced Mats Hummels helped solve the riddle early on Saturday evening.
Instead, Felix Passlack was sent in front of the microphones.
The playmaker in disguise was missing
The 22-year-old could hardly say that he was part of the problem.
It was only indirectly, because Passlack played because Raphael Guerreiro was injured.
The Portuguese has developed into a disguised playmaker in the outside position in recent months.
That's rare in football, maybe that's why it's been so efficient in previous games.
Against Cologne, the Borussia players pushed into the middle.
You lost the ball, the dribbling, the belief and sometimes the lust in the center.
Julian Brandt got lost in himself. The "super talent", as Favre called him, is a constant mystery.
He tried easy and difficult, risky and simple things.
Almost everything failed.
Icon: enlarge
Julian Brandt is said to be an all-rounder on the ball.
Proof of this failed again against Cologne.
Photo: Uwe Kraft / dpa
Why doesn't the 24-year-old national player manage to play at the top of his performance range for at least several weeks in a row?
Favre's answer to this question was remarkable: "He's looking for his right position in the system." So the coach doesn't seem to have found it either.
Reus is also not convincing
Against Cologne, Brandt had no shot on goal and no pass to a shot in 67 minutes, he made 14 bad passes and only won 27 percent of his duels.
"It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either," said Favre, somewhat surprisingly.
The statistics at Reus were much better, especially his passes led to two great chances for Erling Haaland.
But the captain also had the impression that he could do much better.
Perhaps the expectations of Brand, Reus and Co. are now a little too high.
If Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland do not bring their top performance, BVB even gets into big problems against a relegation candidate.
In addition to the Bundesliga, there are two games in the Champions League and one in the DFB Cup for BVB this calendar year.
Lucien Favre is forced to spread the load across many players, the squad gives him the options.
And possibly a chance.
After the defeat against Cologne, Favre was asked whether he would admit the defeat to his team as a slip-up or whether he feared that this would happen again more often.
“The people of Cologne were just good, and we weren't that good.
That's how it is, ”he said.
Because it hasn't been just as good for a long time.
Icon: The mirror