‘It wasn’t a dream!’: Bochum down Bayern in new ‘game of the century’

“I guess it really wasn’t a dream!” On Sunday morning VfL Bochum’s Twitter account needed to verify the reality of what had been a wonderful, surreal afternoon with a snap of the scoreboard at the 90-minute mark. Relegation favourites at the start of the campaign, surprisingly must-watch since, Thomas Reis’s team have been a tough nut to crack, especially at their atmospheric, chocolate box Ruhrstadion. Making life uncomfortable for visitors and becoming the first team to put four first-half goals past Bayern Munich since November 1975 is slightly different, however.

The club’s managing director, Sebastian Schindzielorz, told Sky 90 on Sunday that the game might even surpass the ‘game of the century’ incarnation of the fixture from September 1976, when Bochum had led 4-0 against the European champions and ended up losing 6-5. “Potentially it’s a new game of the century,” said Schindzielorz. “Now we can talk about a replacement for it. It’s a game that will go down in the history books of VfL Bochum.”

Robert Lewandowski and Christopher Antwi-Adjei exchanged goals in the opening 15 minutes, a scenario that coach Reis would already have happily taken, but then Bayern were finished off by an astonishing salvo of three goals in a six-minute spell just before half-time. Jürgen Locadia gave the home side the lead by smashing a penalty past stand-in goalkeeper Sven Ulreich, right-back Cristian Gamboa thrashed a magnificent drive into the top corner after nutmegging – nutmegging! – Kingsley Coman in the build-up to his first Bundesliga goal, and then danger man Gerrit Holtmann curled a beauty around Ulreich from the edge of the penalty area. It was dizzying. The 8,500 home fans “freaked out long before the final whistle,” as