Dortmund still look a pale imitation of their best as colour returns to stands

As Covid restrictions begin to ease at last, Borussia Dortmund’s first home sell-out in more than two years was a sight to behold. It was something that RB Leipzig’s Domenico Tedesco was keen to pre-warn his young side about – although as he later pointed out in an ESPN interview, it was something the home players were not used to experiencing recently either.

The bitter disappointment for most of those in Westfalen on Saturday evening was that while the colour returned to the stands, it was the same old, same old on the pitch. Leipzig coasted to a 4-1 victory after a testing initial 20 minutes, and Tedesco was happy to explain just how his midfield and forwards were able to surge unperturbed towards a prone BVB defence.

Tedesco has brought gloom to this arena before – he was the Schalke coach when they recovered from a 4-0 half-time deficit to take home a point in a memorable Revierderby in November 2017 which accelerated the fall of the then-Dortmund head coach, Peter Bosz. That, though, was different, a shocking punch to the gut. This felt sadly inevitable.

The last time BVB lost two Bundesliga games by a three-goal margin at home in the same season was in 1990-91, when they finished 10th. They have now lost two games by that distance in this calendar year – both at home and both against rivals, in Leverkusen and now Leipzig. Both the visitors could have scored more. Rarely can a team so assured of second place – even now, with a reduced six-point cushion, the runners-up spot will be theirs barring a quite extraordinary collapse – so frequently underwhelm.

“I think we played a good first half,” Manuel Akanji said after the game. “Except for the goals we gave them.” That is a pretty big caveat, but one that sums up