Nuremberg 0-0 Borussia Dortmund
To go one Bundesliga match without a win is not unusual.
To go two without is frustrating, especially when you have led 3-0 going into the closing stages.
But to go three league matches without victory when you are up against the league’s bottom club is when it may be time to start worrying.
Borussia Dortmund may still hold a three-point advantage at the summit, but there is no doubt that the recent weeks have seen the team start to slide and give reigning champions Bayern Munich – seven points off the pace just over a fortnight ago – renewed hope.
Hence the question which will now be asked about the side from the North Rhine-Westphalia.
Highlights of the game
Yes, Dortmund may have been travelling to the Max-Morlock-Stadion on the back of a heavy Champions League defeat last week.
But regaining domestic supremacy after six successive years of Munich glory is their priority under Lucien Favre so that loss would not necessarily raise too many eyebrows.
In contrast, this was a match against opponents some consider the whipping boys of Germany’s top flight.
A team which seems destined for relegation according to many SBOBET fans who look at the table; a team without a win in two months.
A team which was thrashed by Dortmund when the sides met in September.
Yet the most notable thing in this game – one which produced very few Bundesliga 2019 highlights – was that it was halted twice as fans threw black tennis balls onto the pitch.
Fans were protesting about the Monday night kick-off which will be abolished but not until the 2021-22 season after supporters persuaded TV broadcasters to drop the Monday games in favour of more Sunday fixtures.
In the meantime, Bundesliga clubs must stick to the current four-year deal worth £4.07billion, which started in 2017 and includes five Monday-night matches a season.
Goals were certainly expected as the contest pitted the Bundesliga’s best attack in Dortmund (54 goals scored) against its second-worst defence in Nuremberg (46 goals conceded).
Bottom versus top – only one way this was going with Bundesliga 2019 betting odds, surely?
In a close first half, the league’s bottom club even threatened to take a shock lead.
Visiting goalkeeper Roman Burki had to be alert to tip over an Hanno Behrens effort, the same player then heading wide from the resulting corner, before Burki was again called into action after being tested by Matheus Pereira.
After that, however, it became the Christian Mathenia versus Mario Gotze show.
The Nuremberg keeper frustrated Dortmund and Gotze – captaining the club for the first time in the league – time after time, including three times in 60 seconds. Meanwhile, Paco Alcacer shot narrowly wide and Jacob Bruun Larsen had an effort ruled offside four minutes from time.
The league leaders could not find the breakthrough, though.
Quite a start, too, for Boris Schommers and Marek Mintal, the interim Nuremberg coaches, in their first game in charge since replacing Michael Kollner.
Nuremberg may have taken just six points from their last 17 Bundesliga matches, but this point certainly gives them hope in their bid to beat the drop.
The times, they are a tense for both sides. Right now, particularly for Dortmund.
Key statistics
Dortmund have only won one of the four league games top-scoring skipper Marco Reus has missed through injury this season.
This was Dortmund’s fifth consecutive game without a win in all competitions and their third drawn Bundesliga game in a row.
It is their longest run without a win since a run of nine matches without a victory between October and December 2017, under then-manager Peter Bosz.
It was also the first time since March 2015 that Dortmund had failed to score in back-to-back games in the same season.
Belgium midfielder Axel Witsel was booked for the first time this season, on his 22nd Bundesliga appearance.
Nuremberg last defeated Dortmund 11 years ago. It’s a run which stretches back 13 games.
What’s next?
It’s another test for Nuremberg next and a potentially key one.
They travel to midtable Fortuna Dusseldorf on Saturday (February 23) before hosting RB Leipzig a week later – the first two of 12 league matches remaining between now and the end of the season.
Ironically, Dortmund now face their former boss, Bosz, on Sunday as they host Bayer Leverkusen.
That is followed by a trip to FC Augsburg on March 1 and the second leg of their Champions League with Spurs five days later, with the overall outcome surely a formality (the north Londoners lead 3-0 from the first leg).
VfB Stuttgart are the visitors to the Signal Iduna Park on March 9, back in the Bundesliga.
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