Take a look at the current Bundesliga table, and it likely prompts a double take.
Bayern Munich are at the summit, unsurprisingly, ahead of upstarts Hoffenheim, Borussia Moenchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen. Then come Eintracht Frankfurt, Mainz and Wolfsburg, followed by Hannover, newly-promoted Paderborn, and... where is Borussia Dortmund?
"Europe's hottest club" -- which they've deemed themselves to be -- has dwindled into the bottom half of the Bundesliga, sitting in 13th place and ten points back of Bayern. After losing to previously winless Hamburg two weeks ago, Dortmund are closer to the relegation zone than they are to Europe a quarter of the way into the season. Talk of the title race? Muted.
It's a different story in the UEFA Champions League, strangely, where two wins over Arsenal and Anderlecht have the black-and-yellows off to a flying start. But the success abroad has served as a smokescreen for BVB's troubles at home, which can be traced back to several reasons.
Many teams cite injuries as an excuse, but no one will fault Dortmund for blaming their luck. There's a case to be made that Dortmund have been hit harder than Premier League side Arsenal. Marco Reus, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Nuri Sahin, Mats Hummels, Jakub Błaszczykowski and Sebastian Kehl have all missed time, while Ilkay Gundogan still hasn't seen the field in 14 months. Marcel Schmelzer broke a bone in his hand against Hamburg and will be out a few weeks.
The influx of talent this summer was supposed to make this team the deepest under Jurgen Klopp -- one capable of surviving a flood of injuries better than in seasons past -- but that hasn't been the case. In fact, they've struggled on both sides of the ball.
Offensively, Ciro Immobile and Adrian Ramos need more time to acclimate and more help around them to at least partially fill the big shoes of Robert Lewandowski, who spearheaded a well-oiled machine the past two years. The absence of practically all of Dortmund's creative heads in midfield has stalled their progress. Even so, Klopp must have expected a higher return than nine goals on a measly 19% conversation rate on chances thus far (data according to Sport1).
The problems up front could be forgiven if only the defense would perform up to par. The league's second best unit a year ago, suddenly the "D" is missing in Dortmund. Their twelve goals allowed are third-most in the Bundesliga and seven more than BVB conceded at this stage a year ago. Even with Hummels on the field, too many lapses in concentration and individual errors have held this team back.
Ultimately, the onus falls on Klopp to turn this ship around. Everybody's favorite joke-cracking manager is a tactical genius and an even better motivator. His best trait has always been getting the most out of his players. He hasn't been able to so far, but help is on the way. Klopp will welcome back Reus, Mkhitaryan and perhaps even Gundogan as soon as this weekend.
"For us, the rest of the season starts now," Klopp said before Saturday's tilt at Cologne, the first of seven games in 23 days. "We clearly don't have enough points and not many positive results -- of course we all hope that the guys with the big names will be at 100% right away."
"We have the quality, we have the mentality and all the requirements to play successful football," Klopp says, but warns that with the stars coming back, "we shouldn't believe, that we'll start to automatically win games now."
Captain Mats Hummels has also remained calm despite the slump in the league. "You can't just march through an entire season, it's very rare," he told Kicker recently.
Indeed, Dortmund fared just three points better after seven matchdays in the 2010-11 campaign, and ended up winning the title comfortably over Bayern Munich with what was a record 81 points. On Saturday, Dortmund will hope to revive its disappointing season against a Cologne side who are only one point behind BVB -- an unexpected scenario with seven rounds of matches already played. Cologne manager Peter Stoger nevertheless says there is a gulf between the two sides far greater than that solitary point.
"They have played fantastically in the Champions League and the team are far better than they look in the Bundesliga table," he said on his club's website. "Jurgen Klopp has developed a good team in recent years and he has signed players who fit in with his style of play. But on a good day, we're certainly going to have more chance against them than we had against Bayern Munich. We've just got to be more active ourselves."
The hill may be too tall to climb this time around, but with several key players returning, Dortmund aim to at least crawl back to where they need to be to remain one of Europe's hottest addresses. That's in the top four, and back to where we can see them.
