Borussia Dortmund make joint-worst start to a season in 10 years | OneFootball

After a 3-1 defeat against Mainz on Saturday afternoon, Borussia Dortmund suffered their joint-worst start to a Bundesliga season in 10 years. Their 16 points after 10 games is equal to their start in the 2022/23 season, while they picked up just seven points in the 2014/15 season, which was Jürgen Klopp’s final year as Die Schwarzgelben’s head coach.

Coming into the game, Nuri Şahin had a number of injuries to contend with. Gregor Kobel, Waldemar Anton, Niklas Süle, Giovanni Reyna, Julien Duranville and Karim Adeyemi were all sidelined, while Ramy Bensebaini was suspended after last weekend’s yellow card against RB Leipzig, his fifth of the season.

Julian Ryerson returned to the squad, while Yan Couto also recovered from injury to find his place on the bench, but it was again Emre Can starting alongside Nico Schlotterbeck in central defence with Pascal Groß playing an unfamiliar role at right-back.

Borussia Dortmund get off to worst possible start

Already seven points behind leaders Bayern Munich prior to today’s game, Borussia Dortmund could not have gotten off to a worst start. Emre Can was shown a straight red card after 27 minutes and just nine minutes later, Lee Jae-sung gave Mainz the lead heading into the break following comical defending.

Serhou Guirassy equalised from the spot in the 40th minute, but Jonathan Burkardt put the hosts in the lead in the third minute of stoppage time at the end of the first half. Again it was lackadaisical defending, which wasn’t helped with Felix Nmecha playing at centre-back following Can’s sending off.

And then just nine minutes after the restart, Paul Nebel put Bo Henriksen’s Mainz in a 3-1 lead.

With Bayern Munich’s 1-0 win over St. Pauli and a draw between Freiburg and Union Berlin on Friday night, Borussia Dortmund now find themselves in seventh, 10 points behind the Rekordmeister in what is their joint-worst start to a Bundesliga campaign is – 16 points in the 2022/23 season, and just seven in the 2014/15 season, Klopp’s final.

GGFN | Daniel Pinder