Euphoria certainly did not break out in Mönchengladbach when the Olympic canoeing champion Ronald Rauhe from Borussia vom Niederrhein drew FC Bayern Munich as opponents for the second round of the DFB Cup in August.
After all, the people of Gladbach see realistic chances in this competition of being able to win an important title again for the first time since 1995.
To meet the undisputed strongest competitor in the second round this Wednesday (8.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the DFB Cup, on ARD and Sky) can confidently be described as bad luck. The Munich are the "ne plus ultra", says coach Adi Hütter. But maybe a particularly prominent opponent is also very good for this team, whose performances are often difficult to understand. Even the Munich coach Julian Nagelsmann, who will also be absent from Mönchengladbach due to his Covid illness, calls Borussia “bizarre” before the duel.
Gladbach played the best games of the season against the strongest opponents, for example in the 1-1 draw against FC Bayern on the first match day.
And in the win against BVB at the end of September.
There are some indications that Borussia needs the greatest challenges in order to play their best football, which raises questions about the character and attitude of the team.
"We can't play against Bayern in this form," said Hütter after the defeat at Hertha BSC last weekend.
As new as the coach is, the negligence towards clubs that are not part of the top performance category is familiar.
Hütter comes under pressure
Last season the team was celebrated for gorgeous Champions League games against Inter Milan and Real Madrid, in the league the teams from Munich, Dortmund and Leipzig were defeated.
At the same time, Borussia gambled away in many small everyday duels against FC Augsburg, 1899 Hoffenheim or Mainz 05, qualifying for the European Cup.
Like his predecessor Marco Rose, Hütter seems a little helpless in the face of this dynamic, but takes his players under protection.
The trend is okay, he says, “we defend quite well, we haven't allowed much in the past five games”.
However, he has no real explanation for the total of only eleven points from nine games with which Gladbach is in the disappointing twelfth place in the table.
The new trainer is slowly coming under pressure.
On Tuesday, without being asked, he criticized a journalist who suspected in a text that captain Lars Stindl and striker Breel Embolo would lose their place in the starting XI. "Hütter shaves two top stars" was written above the article, he now angrily clarifies that he does not shave anyone. On the one hand, this is understandable, but on a functioning structure with a good relationship of trust between the coach and the players, such agitated boulevards usually roll off.
But the mood in Gladbach is apparently tense, because nobody really seems to know what can bring this team to consistently strong performances.
Goalkeeper Yann Sommer said in an interview with Kicker that the team “needed a bit of time” to internalize the new coach's ideas, while Hütter himself once stated that he was expecting very similar things to his predecessor Rose.
Difficult location for Gladbach
The two victories against BVB and in Wolfsburg were impressive, followed by a draw against VfB Stuttgart and the defeat in Berlin, where Jonas Hofmann lost his composure for a moment: "If you want to be in the top six, you can't, that you catch such a goal.
To put it in good German, that really pisses me off. "
This kind of anger is currently part of everyday life in Gladbach, which is astonishing because Hütter is actually a particularly well-versed expert for teams that struggle to regularly play at their performance limit. The Austrian is co-author of a book that was published a few years ago with the title “The 11 Laws of Motivation in Top Football”, and he recently added the work “Team Spirit: How to Develop a Master Team”. The former Frankfurter is therefore a specialist in cases like Borussia, whose potential somehow cannot develop. At least in theory. And yet it would be unfair to give Hütter the main responsibility for the unsatisfactory present. The whole club is in a difficult situation.
Actually, the business model provides that some of the best Gladbachers take a step to the next higher level after good years with European Cup participation. The club is a springboard for the most exciting talents, and sports director Max Eberl can use the money raised to refresh the roster. Also last summer, a number of players were the subject of speculation on the transfer market, in the end all of them stayed.
Because Borussia will also not take part in any European Cup this year, there is great potential for frustration.
"If someone is sad that he cannot present himself on the international stage, then he should help to ensure that it is different again next year," Eberl recently complained to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The fact that the team plays particularly well against particularly prominent opponents fits well with the assumption that some professionals believe that they have actually become too big for Borussia.
That will hardly help Munich, however, duels with the record champions are a real challenge for everyone.