RB Leipzig on verge of glory but still a long way from national acceptance

It was the busy Monday night that everyone could have done without – a creaking Eintracht Frankfurt, Borussia Mönchengladbach’s fans and, ultimately, RB Leipzig. While one Europa League semi-finalist, not quite fresh from a famous win over West Ham in London, struggled to a defeat in Leverkusen with a scratch team the other, far more surprisingly, stumbled an hour to the north-west. If it wasn’t the start to the week Germany’s terrace stalwarts would have ideally wanted, it was far from what Domenico Tedesco would have been hoping for as well.

It’s the price of success, and you don’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs. Yet the intrinsic fragility of late-season hopes and dreams could not have been clearer on this early summer night in Mönchengladbach. Leipzig still have the best Bundesliga record of any team in 2022, a testament to the fine work of Tedesco, but they have now been pulled back towards the pack by successive Bundesliga defeats, at the worst possible time. Freiburg had the chance to put pressure on their Champions League rivals by winning on Saturday and took advantage of the scheduling.

With all their resources, and a squad looking like being perfectly calibrated for this sort of juggling act, Leipzig were unable to respond. Tedesco made five changes from the semi-final first leg win against Rangers, but his team produced a lethargic first half. “You can take the tactics board and throw it in the bin,” said the visibly frustrated coach afterwards. Seeing a side that normally play with such zest stripped of their usual vim is jarring, and it’s what we saw here.

It wasn’t just the rigour of Gladbach, keen to impress after a disappointing campaign, which pressed Leipzig. This unforeseen, at least at