The first-round nightmare of the unreleasable

Three Bundesliga clubs are entering the 2023/2024 season with high hopes, having shaped last year's crazy final matchday on May 27, 2023. On the touchline are coaches who stand for more than just the table. In the course of the first half of the season, they broke up.

When it was over, the tears flowed, not the beer. Edin Terzić knocked on the spot where his heart beats and stepped in front of the south stand. Then he broke down again. Later, he sat forlornly in the press conference room. "This matchday will hurt us for a very long time," he said. "We gave City the benefit of the doubt. We'll try again next season." A little over six months after May 27, 2023, nobody in Dortmund believes anymore. Just over six months after the 2:2 draw against Mainz, the attempt to fight for the championship again must be considered a failure. Just over six months after throwing away the championship, the 34th matchday of the 2022/2023 season still hurts.

The direct, immediate pain has become chronic. The runners-up have been plagued by all kinds of worries throughout the season. The Westfalenstadion is no longer an impregnable fortress, the defeats are piling up and the storm warning has long since turned into a raging hurricane. In these final days of the year, Borussia Dortmund are only convincing as what they did not want to be.

Dortmund are convincing as the clattering giant that always lies down on its snout and never gets up. They are the butler James who asks "the same procedure as last year?" and then stumbles over the tiger skin again. Last year, hardly anyone understood how BVB crept towards the championship after the disastrous pre-World Cup phase of the previous season. They had rarely impressed in sporting terms, even losing crushingly to Bayern, and yet there they were.

Tercic credit almost used up

Now they are gone again. Borussia Dortmund are once again the German counterpart to English crisis giants Manchester United. They are the club that can no longer get anything together and are putting on an unparalleled spectacle of crisis in front of a nation that applauds them derisively. It is one that would have driven the coach out of office long ago at almost any other club. Because Dortmund's crisis is many things, and it is also Terzić's crisis.

The man from Sauerland has Borussia Dortmund in his heart. He shouted them from the stands of the Olympic Stadium to a 5:2 victory over Bayern Munich in the cup final of the historic double in 2012 and led them to DFB Cup victory at the same venue in the midst of the pandemic in 2021. Terzic embodies Dortmund. Embodies the club and embodies the city. But what makes Terzic strong draws him down to earth. For those who look at Borussia Dortmund from the outside, all that lifeblood is nothing more than a source of great derision. The credit seems to have been used up, the alliance concluded before the South on May 27 has long since been terminated. After 14 match days, the 41-year-old is being criticized more than ever before. His departure before the end of the year can no longer be ruled out.

One of the questions that BVB must answer is almost impossible to answer: How does a club deal with sacking one of them and is it even possible? How does a club manage such a departure? BVB has been in this situation before. Back then, when Jürgen Klopp left and left footprints that no one could ever fill. Klopp was an irredeemable man. He could choose his farewell. Terzic won't be able to do that if the Champions League remains out of sight.

When Dortmund cried, all of Köpenick laughed

That's why, at the end of this half-season of nightmares, the focus these days is on two other clubs who have already gone through this painful process. Who have had to prioritize cold business over romance. Who struggled with their decisions and yet couldn't help themselves. They are all connected by May 27, 2023, the day that changed everything, when nothing changed at the top of the league.

Urs Fischer was also one of those who couldn't let go. He left anyway. The Swiss had written the greatest success story in German soccer with Union Berlin, at least in recent years. With the oddball coach, the club from Köpenick knew only one program - that of a never-ending ascent into spheres that nobody had ever envisaged for this traditional club.

On that fateful May 27, when Dortmund wept, all of Köpenick laughed. Fischer stood on the balcony of the Alte Försterei and couldn't believe it. With a 1:0 win against SV Werder Bremen, the "Eisern" had made it into the Champions League. A vacation in the first division, as the Köpenickers were called after promotion in the summer of 2019, had long since turned into a vacation in Europe. The man responsible for this was Fischer, who turned manager Oliver Ruhnert's erratic transfer policy into an even better team every season.

"Terror soccer" paves Fischer's way

No player, no official shaped the club's public image like Fischer did with his calm, reassuring manner. Without a single hint of arrogance, he oversaw the club's rise to national prominence, never looking in any other direction. There were no rumors of a commitment to other clubs. Fischer was Union and Union was terror soccer. Deeply loved by those who counted themselves as fans of the Köpenickers and respected by those who were not. Fischer had organized it.

The principle was simple: everyone threw themselves into the defense for everyone else. That's where mistakes were to be eliminated, that's where breakthroughs via the wingers were to be prevented by the league's most defensive five-man backline and that's where the middle was to be closed down by a stop sign in defensive midfield. The further the game moved forward, the higher the risk. Somehow a ball went in and then it was okay. He left the limelight to his defensive monsters.

In the end, all that remains is the memory

But then the dream turned into a nightmare and nobody could say why. Maybe it started with a red card for Kevin Volland in the game against RB Leipzig. Maybe it started with the transfers in the summer, which changed the statics of the defense, or maybe it started with Jude Bellingham's 1:0 on Union's debut in the Champions League. The former Dortmund man scored deep into stoppage time for Real Madrid and the point at the Bernabeu turned into a respectable defeat. It was one that tore Fischer's legs out from under him.

When he walked into the Alte Försterei for the last time as coach at the beginning of November in the match against Eintracht Frankfurt, the stadium roared his name louder than ever before. It was not enough. The negative spiral turned too quickly. A week later, it was all over.

Now all that remained were the memories of the great dream they had lived. Soccer lives through that. It creates moments that will last forever. Soccer is a great memory machine. Most of the time, fans spend their time remembering what once was and only very rarely do they find themselves in a time that will later have been and be significant. Only in a few years do fans and clubs live the dream.

The miracle of Mainz

Just as they had lived it in Mainz and just as they had to experience there how everything turned upside down. How everything that was good falls apart. The pre-Christmas period in 2020 was anything but contemplative at 1. FSV Mainz 05: the club had collected seven points, the club was struggling to find its identity, people and club had become estranged from each other. Under coach Sandro Schwarz and predecessor Achim Baierlorzer, the team had often been bored, too often frustrated and too rarely inspired. Or at least scored points. The coach had to go. When president Stefan Hofmann called an extraordinary press conference, the people hoped for an emotional release.

Mainz architects Christian Heidel, Bo Svensson and Martin Schmidt (from left to right) .

They love emotions in Mainz, including good stories. The greatest had been written by Jürgen Klopp, who rose from being an average second-division struggler to become a world-class coach and first gave Mainz, then the whole of footballing Germany and later the world, fairy tale after fairy tale. But Hofmann had no promises of a great, or at least exciting, future in his luggage. He faced the people empty-handed and only had to announce that he had no idea what would happen next. There was the idea of bringing back Christian Heidel, the man who had promoted Klopp to coach. Heidel, who was the architect of Mainz's little soccer miracle that took the club all the way to the European Cup and, with Thomas Tuchel, turned an A-youth coach into the next world coach in training.

But between the years, what they had dreamed of happened. If it wasn't far too cheesy for a Hollywood movie, you wouldn't believe it. Heidel was persuaded to take on responsibility at Mainz once again - on the condition that Bo Svensson would become his coach. Svensson, who had defended for Mainz 05 in the first and second divisions for many years, went along. The miracle took its course. After three defeats at the start, Mainz 05 almost played a Champions League second half of the season, adding 29 points to a miserable seven points in the first half of the season, beating FC Bayern and Leipzig. They managed to avoid relegation with ease. Svensson took the people with him, those in the stands and those on the pitch. Just like Klopp once did, the father of Mainz 05 and Borussia Dortmund.

The last hurrah on May 27

Svensson brought back the intensity, the desire to swap the last shirt for a conquered ball. He led a soccer city out of depression and back to optimism. Svensson was poised to become the new Klopp. The former defender, limited but combative to the point of self-destruction, brought back the exciting soccer, the emotion, the results. The story was perfect.

Svensson followed up the miracle with a solid season that was exciting in special moments, but at some point it seemed as if the plug had been pulled: Nothing wanted to succeed anymore, the team regressed instead of moving forward. A 3:1 against Bayern Munich on April 22, 2023 was to be his last league win. It was one that made Borussia Dortmund dream of the championship. A dream that Svensson's Mainz destroyed with their courageous performance against a timid Borussia on that May 27. It was the last sign of life from the carnival stronghold, which staggered from then on.

The end of the unreleasable

After a disastrous cup exit at second division club Hertha BSC, Svensson, who Heidel said "would never have been sacked", pulled the ripcord - and announced his resignation. The decision was made in the middle of the night. The end result was failure, as always in soccer - including Jürgen Klopp. He was relegated with "his" club, and after missing out on promotion, he left for the world in tears. Svensson said goodbye with a video. Nobody wanted him to leave, even after 14 games without a win, including an embarrassing cup exit. They loved him and when he left, tears flowed on all sides.

Terzic, Fischer and Svensson were among the unmissable players in this league. Not the only ones, of course. SC Freiburg would be unthinkable without Christian Streich, the miraculous rise of FC Heidenheim unimaginable without Frank Schmidt. In this painful six months, two clubs have lost their identification figures, and with Terzic, the next one is already at the door. He can still turn things around. But his imagination is fading with every game. When it's over, tears will flow once again. Because it was important. Like May 27 - for Edin, Urs and Bo. It was the day that changed everything.