Football, as a sport, can only be conducted in one way – the correct way. As the great Cruyff is a beacon for the correct playing of football and the functioning of football clubs, it is enough to look at Germany and the brightest example – Borussia from Dortmund.
Borussia is the epitome of what football is: a sport tailored to the common man, football for fans, exactly as it should be.
After winning the Champions League in May 1997, the football atmosphere in Dortmund was at its peak.
When the club’s management decided two years later to separate the professional football team from the classic traditional association of citizens into the legal form of a limited partnership with shares, the fans and members of the club had every right to hope for a new rise and sporting success with the help of fresh capital.
Borussia Dortmund became the first German football club to go public in October 2000, where the sale of shares generated a net income of 130 million euros. However, at the end of that saga, the club and the fans came out as winners as they saved the giant Dortmund from bankruptcy and shutdown. Ever since this team has been in stable financial condition, it has always been among the best German teams in Bundesliga and in the Champions League.
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But there are certain dates in the life of every faithful football club fan that is deeply etched in the memory, that answer the question like a cannon at any time of the day or night, that can be pride or shame.
These are usually the date of the club’s foundation, a symbolic championship or cup victory, a record victory against eternal rivals, or even relegation to a lower level of competition. Also, the biggest and heaviest defeats cannot be easily forgotten. B. Dortmund, in its history, had few matches that its fans would like to forget.
On April 29, 1978, at Rheinstadion in Dusseldorf, which B. Monchengladbach used as its home stadium, the home team hosted B. Dortmund in the season’s last round. The hosts were fighting for the title, and certainly, everyone there was expecting a win against B. Dortmund.
Still, nobody in Germany that day was expecting one of the greatest wins in Bundesliga history to occur right there and then in a duel between B. Monchengladbach and B. Dortmund. The home side entered the match highly motivated, and the half-time result was 6-0. By the end of the game, B. Monchengladbach scored six more goals, and the result was 12:0, which was enough for this team to win the Bundesliga because of a better goal difference than 2nd placed Koln.
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On November 27, 1971, B. Dortmund was playing against its eternal biggest and fiercest rival Bayern Munich at Grunwalder Stadium. B. Dortmund struggled at the time to survive in the best German league, while Bayern was building up a generation of players that later would write some of the best pages of the teams’ history. In “Der Klassiker” it’s always important to win, but it’s more important to embarrass the opponent. And this is what Bayern Munich did in this match when they won 11:1 versus B. Dortmund.
In a derby duel between 4th and 5th placed teams on the table on April 18, 1970, in Berlin, Hertha won against B. Dortmund 9:1, and this is one of the results of which the home team is most proud.