Disregard the table and it sounds as if Borussia Dortmund are preparing something special for the restart of the Bundesliga after the long winter break.
Ignore the fact that the 2011 and 2012 German league winners (and 2013 Champions League finalists) won just four times between August and December and it’s as if they’re pumping themselves up for a run at more success between now and the end of May.
The noises coming out of the Westfalenstadion are overwhelmingly positive as the German top flight gets set to resume this weekend. And it’s not because the campaign’s initial session was in any way encouraging. It’s because they have to be.
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“The slogan for the second half of the season is ‘Only BVB’,” manager Jurgen Klopp told the club’s official website. “I believe that things will now really get started for us. Everyone’s fully focused and building up confidence.”
He added: “I’m a positive person, but I’m not naively optimistic. I know this team can achieve a lot.”
He knows because he, like everyone else who has followed Dortmund over the course of his six-and-a-half year tenure, has seen those achievements on a regular basis. He has inspired them, masterminded them—which is why his posture of positivity is so extraordinary when bafflement or despair would be understandable.
After all, Dortmund kicked off their 2014-15 schedule with a 2-0 win over Bayern Munich in the German Supercup that seemed to point to additional success in the short term. But it was a 2-0 home defeat to Bayer Leverkusen 10 days later that would prove far more indicative of what was to come, and after narrow wins over Augsburg and Freiburg before mid-September the runners-up from the previous spring proceeded to win just two more games before the winter break.
They struggled mightily to find the back of the net (just 18 goals from 17 outings); they discovered new ways to lose. And ahead of their trip to Bayer Leverkusen this weekend they find themselves joint-bottom of the Bundesliga, fighting for their very existence in the top flight.
Still, they’re not complaining. In fact, there’s a sense around the club that the next few months will produce the attractive football—and constructive results—that will help them into a more respectable position.
January signing Kevin Kampl, for example, has impressed both his manager and new teammates and in a recent friendly against Utrecht scored the only goal of the encounter.
“That goal was fantastic,” exclaimed Klopp post-match. “Kevin is a great lad and he fits well into the team,” added Marco Reus in an interview with ARD. “When looking at his style of play he mirrors me and certain other players in the squad, and that’s exactly what we need.”
Reus, for his part, has fully recovered from an ankle problem that limited his effectiveness in the first half, and influential winger Jakub Blaszczykowski is also available for selection following a serious ligament injury. Playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan, meanwhile, has overcome a hamstring tear and should play some part on Saturday.
But perhaps the biggest boost for Dortmund is Mats Hummels’ return to fitness after battling a series of knee and ligament injuries.
“I’m in much better shape than in the first half of the season,” he told the club’s official website. “In the 90 minutes against Utrecht, I felt better than in any of the games in the first half of the season, and that’s an important step.”
It goes without saying that Dortmund will progress only as far as their star defender takes them, but Hummels’ progression is just part of the bigger picture for Klopp, who can hardly wait to transplant the feel-good mentality of winter training to competitive matches.
“I would have liked the world to see how hard and focused the lads practiced last week,” he said. “That’s why I believe that things will now really get started for us. Everyone’s fully focused and building up confidence.”
Klopp and his players are aware of their present standing, and the challenge that awaits. Incredibly, they’re looking forward to the next few months with excited anticipation rather than nervous apprehension.
Borussia Dortmund may have won worldwide affection as a sort of hipster club, but they were always more than that. They were, and remain, a happy club—perhaps now more than ever before.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter