Rose gets revenge on Dortmund but still has much to prove at Leipzig

It must have been sweet, even if he hid it well; 114 days after his exit from Borussia Dortmund, Marco Rose was back in the coaching saddle with RB Leipzig – for an immediate confrontation with his former employers. If there was a mildly awkward touchline embrace with his predecessor, and successor, Edin Terzić, before kick-off, the rest of Saturday afternoon couldn’t have been smoother for Rose.

After a torrid start to the season, with successive four-goal beatings by Eintracht Frankfurt and Shakhtar Donetsk drawing the curtains on the Domenico Tedesco era, Leipzig cruised to a 3-0 win, giving Rose the perfect debut on the bench. He wouldn’t be lured into discussing any lingering animosity, insisting there was none (“I made some great friends there”) despite the relatively short time since the split. “In the end,” he told Sky, “it didn’t fit together any more, and I had to go. But life goes on.”

Clearly it’s easier to be magnanimous when one has handed those former employers a lesson, even if it rarely felt like a ‘look at what you’re missing’ kind of display. Rose’s season in Dortmund began with much expectation and was not easy. He arrived on the defensive; his three months of serving notice in spring and summer at Borussia Mönchengladbach were uncomfortable, even borderline unpleasant. His new employers had paid €5m to get him out of Gladbach and if they weren’t expecting the Bundesliga title, they were expecting something – direction, drive, a plan.

So while BVB finished in their accustomed second place behind Bayern, it felt like a campaign of bare minimums. Rose’s team were humbled in the Champions League by Ajax and Sporting, looked a rabble in their Europa League exit to Rangers and were dumped out of the DfB