Daniel Farke had such an idea.

So he asked his proven clearer and clearer Christoph Kramer when he last set accents "on the 10", i.e. the director's position.

The 31-year-old omnipresent Borussia Mönchengladbach pro didn't need to think twice to reply to his coach: in the 2014 World Cup final, which Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in Rio de Janeiro.

But Kramer, who was more on the defensive, only remembered this with a time lag because he had to leave the pitch after a good half hour due to a concussion.

The world champion, who stuck his neck out for Germany and played his 250th competitive game for Borussia on Saturday evening, shaped and coordinated his first appearance as a tenth in the surprisingly clear 3-0 win over the astonishingly disoriented rivals RB Leipzig in Borussia Park more than eight years with a coordination matter of course that has long distinguished him as a particularly clever and positive team player in the Bundesliga.

There are no halves for this professional, and that's why he did a great job in what was the best game of the season so far for the "Elf vom Niederrhein", who had moved up into the top group.

Farke's move worked.

He found the ideal midfielder for this opponent with Julian Weigl in midfield, Kouadio Koné in eighth and Kramer as the most attacking midfielder.

"He did it phenomenally"

A week after the Rhinelander was urgently needed as a central defender in the 0-0 draw in Freiburg due to the protracted injury to the Japanese defense chief Ko Itakura, he interpreted the big step forward as the chief pressing organizer and the first duel behind the three strikers Jonas Hofmann, Marcus Thuram and Lars Stindl with the utmost naturalness.

"He did a phenomenal job," praised Jonas Hofmann, also a man of the day in the still far too narrow triumph over the after an English week of league games against Dortmund (3-0) and Mönchengladbach and the Champions League appearance Defending champions Real Madrid (0:2) visibly exhausted Saxony.

Hofmann praised his colleague Kramer to the skies: "Chris was fantastic today!" Why?

"We wanted to use his game intelligence and class."

Hofmann scores twice

The three attackers managed that very well.

The busy right winger Hofmann, who will be needed in the coming days for the national team in the Nations League matches against Hungary and England.

The man from Baden was on fire against Leipzig from the start, scored 1-0 (10th minute) and 2-0 (35th) and after the change, as he self-critically admitted, "should have scored two more goals".

Hofmann benefited from the goal threat and preparation quality of his central attacking partner Marcus Thuram, who often enough unselfishly initiated the numerous Gladbach counterattacks.

In one of his many conversations at the beginning of the week, Farke had also gotten the sometimes brooding Frenchman, who doubted his goalscoring quality, up to speed.

"I told him, don't worry too much, work for the team, be good in the game, the goals will come automatically," said the East Westphalian football coach, who first worked in the Premier League at Norwich City and now in the Bundesliga talked about a conversation with the son of the 1998 World Champion, Lilian Thuram.

In the end, after this, as Farke says, "lighthouse game", everyone from Gladbach was happy about a promising appearance.

Leipzig, on the other hand, who are slacking this time, led by former Gladbach coach Marco Rose for about a week, played a hopeless dead-end football after a sweeping 3-0 win over Borussia Dortmund and a remarkable 0-2 draw against Real Madrid in the Champions League on Saturday, which was a lot about revealed the collective deficits of the table fourth of the previous season, who started the Bundesliga season worse than ever with eight points on weaker days.

Yussuf Poulsen, who was carefully integrated into the team after a long period of injury and, as a substitute striker on Saturday, did not yet have the strength to change the contours of the RB appearance, was then not at a loss for clear words: "We don't help each other, let everyone let the others down.

We rely too much on individuals being able to solve the situation.” With this attitude, the team seemed hopelessly lost from the start.