FC Bayern suffer their first defeat of the Bundesliga season in Augsburg, but Nico Schlotterbeck, Emre Can and Lars Ricken believe they have a chance in the title race again after Dortmund’s win in Berlin.
After Munich’s surprising 2-1 defeat to FC Augsburg, BVB were called upon to deliver at Union Berlin on Saturday evening. Dortmund reduced the gap to the record champions to eight points with a commanding 3-0 win. Nico Schlotterbeck in particular made it clear that the Westphalians are far from having written off the title.
The centre-back, who scored the 2-0 goal with his head, said after the game: „I don’t want the title to be decided in March. I want to stay in the race for as long as possible. If we close the gap to four or five points, they’ll start to think. They’ll still come to us. They’re not completely out of reach, we want to be there when they make mistakes.“
Captain Emre Can assessed the gap in the table soberly: „Eight points is a lot, Bayern are playing an outstanding season, but so are we. We’ll concentrate on ourselves and see what happens in the end.“ It was BVB’s third Bundesliga win in a row. Dortmund have been unbeaten in the league since October.
Ricken sees signal for the league
BVB sporting director Lars Ricken also spoke of a positive signal after the game, and not just for his own club: „It’s a good sign for the Bundesliga that they lost. It shows that they are beatable. We could have had a few more points if we hadn’t given them away in stoppage time. Now we have to concentrate on ourselves.“
Bayern CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen also warned against premature partying in view of the strong season so far and the first setback in the league: „The season is still long,“ he told BILD am Sonntag. Dreesen emphasized that even strong performances should not hide Munich’s weak phases: „We deserved to lose against Augsburg because of our performance in the second half.“
Meanwhile, hopes are growing in Dortmund for an exciting second half of the season. The next home game against bottom-of-the-table Heidenheim is likely to be a must-win for the second-placed team, while Bayern will play away at HSV. The record champions and Dortmund will then face each other directly on 28 February, by which time at the latest a small preliminary decision could be made in Munich’s favour.
