Borussia Dortmund suffered defeat last weekend, the most unusual one of the season so far. The last year’s champion, who is currently with 14 points behind the current league leaders Bayern Munich, is on the third place, having lost with 2:3 against the relegation candidate VfL Wolfsburg.
Referee Wolfgang Stark had a particularly large share of the bitter outcome. The referee penalized a more than questionable handball by the Dortmund defender Marcel Schmelzer with a red card in the first half and gave another penalty for the black and yellow team. Shortly after the game, Stark apologized to the BVB for his wrong decision and described the scene as a perceptual error.
The DFB reacted immediately to these events and said that the player Marcel Schmelzer is free from a possible suspension after the red card. Wolfgang Stark won’t most probably be used at least for the rest of the season in any game of the BVB.
Somehow, the last game fits to the general manner of playing of Borussia during the season, which this year is just not in such good as it was in the previous year. The team lost points from Wolfsburg and not for the first time, in a very unfortunate way, as it has some important issues and had buried any hopes of defending the titlebefore the end of the first round.
Next weekend, the Klopp’s team will face another relegation candidate – Hoffenheim 1899.
The crisis in the Association of the patron Dietmar Hopp seems to have no end. After the defeat against Werder Bremen in the 15th round, leadership end the contract of Markus Babbel and the U23 coach Frank Kramer took over.
The new coach also immediately took some action and threw out of the squad until further notice the two legionnaires Joselu and Usami due to their lack of knowledge of German.
Moreover, the interim coach tried a new modified system and four new players. All these measures, however, were with no effect. Against Hamburg, the players of Hoffenheim 1899 presented badly, as so often this season and had almost no chance against Hamburg.
Currently Hoffenheim is at the relegation place, six points behind the 15th (and saving) rank. If they do not step up at the end of the season for the trip to the second in the Bundesleague, the club will respond as quickly as possible. A win against Borussia Dortmund would not be just the first step, but a big exclamation mark in the face of the competition.
If you believe the bookmakers, the odds for such bad are quite losing. If you try and bet, for a victory of Hoffenheim, you will get rates from 5.00 to 7.00. For the victory of the BVB the rates are only from 1.50 to 1.53.