Daniel Farke has been campaigning for 16 minutes in a row to rate Borussia Mönchengladbach more positively. The only thing that bothers me a bit is the reality.
Before the last Bundesliga game against Eintracht Frankfurt, Borussia Mönchengladbach’s head coach Daniel Farke gave a monologue and criticized what he saw as the negative reporting. These 16 minutes, which were accompanied by great enthusiasm in the social networks, definitely deserved a reaction from his team.
If the coach goes so far in advance to lower the bar a bit from the media and the environment and to focus much more on the good things in the course of the season so far, then it’s really not a good answer, at half-time it’s 0 again: 3 to lie behind.
After all, Gladbach then won the second half to zero. And definitely showed the will to make the thing exciting again somehow. From the point of view of those responsible for sport, things felt positive again on this Saturday evening.
Just stupid: there is no point for the 1: 3 despite the 1: 0 success in the second round, the table also has no B grade and shows Gladbach in ninth place after eleven games.
Already eliminated in the cup
In the DFB Cup, which is traditionally very popular with the team from the Lower Rhine because it promises the shortest route to a title chance, it’s already over: 1: 2 at second division Darmstadt 98 in round two, again after a mysteriously sleepy one first half.
In his monologue, which took place shortly after the end of the cup, Daniel Farke nevertheless campaigned with great passion and eloquence for a different view of things. “If we did what we do here at a club in England, they would carry us around the stadium on their hands”the ex-Norwich City coach claimed.
“Leipzig really screwed up”
Farke further said: “It’s not media scolding, it’s intended as a self-reflection on our German mentality. We try to see dangers everywhere and to nag about many things where there is actually relatively little to nag about. But we’re really screwing RB Leipzig away here, Cologne gets five here, then the coach says his team’s gotten their ass full. We got a point against Bayern. We’ve done everything that is important to the fans. We’re having an incredibly stable season.”
Incredibly stable. It’s a matter of definition. Incredibly stable, this team has so far refused to win an away game. That didn’t even work out at Schalke, where the Gladbachers initially dragged the pace for a long time, but then led 2-1 to concede the equalizer in injury time.
The form fluctuations in the weekly change are also incredibly stable: the really grandiose 3:0 against RB Leipzig was followed by a 1:5 at Werder Bremen. The point at Bayern, which was won thanks to Yann Sommer, was followed by a 0-1 draw at home against Mainz.
“Know where we come from”
So what has really gotten better under Farke? In any case, the game system in the games in which the Gladbachers did not sleep through the first half (like against Mainz, Schalke, Bremen, Darmstadt and Frankfurt). The new coach managed to turn a team that was totally overwhelmed and unsettled by Adi Hütter’s constant pressing idea into a team that really wants to have the ball.
A team that can totally sweep the fans away, like they did against Leipzig and Cologne. But that then simply does not follow suit when there is a chance to establish themselves at the top, allow blatant blunders in the build-up game and in individual defensive behavior and give away too many clear scoring chances.
Of course, Farke also knows all this and, from his point of view, justifies it in a completely understandable way by saying that one knows “where you’ve been in the past 18 to 24 months” come here On the one hand, this means the past year under Hütter, under which this team was also able to screw Bayern Munich out of the cup 5-0.
This also means the late phase under Marco Rose, who pulled the rug from under VfL’s feet after an impressive year in the Champions League with his farewell announcement to Dortmund. Previously, this team, which has not changed so much compared to today, had defied Inter Milan and Real Madrid in the premier class and ridiculed Shakhtar Donetsk twice.
More would be possible
Under Rose, Gladbach finished eighth, under Hütter tenth, under Farke they are now in between. That is incredibly stable average. The squad proved themselves capable of so much more in the 3-0 win against Leipzig, and that makes Farke’s argument difficult.
It is sportingly possible to fight for a European competition with this team, and that would be extremely important, for example to convince Yann Sommer to extend his contract. But it is also true that top performers such as Ko Itakura, Florian Neuhaus, Yann Sommer and Jonas Hofmann are currently injured.
And yet: Measured against the potential and the market value of the squad, which manager Roland Virkus likes to throw into the race to counteract criticism, gray mediocrity is not enough. Borussia are seventh in the market value table, which is currently possible with significantly less money, as SC Freiburg and Union Berlin are currently showing.
Now for the table leader
Gladbach has to go to the Irons, who are at the top of the table, next Sunday (October 30th, 2022, live ticker at sportschau.de). It is very likely that the Farke-Elf will once again have more possession than their opponents at the end of the 90 minutes. Whether that’s enough for more than a good B grade is definitely also a question of unbelievable stability.