Welcome to Fear The Wall’s weekly update on the kids blah blah blah who cares…

THEY DID IT, Y’ALL!!! THEY DID IT!!!! Y’all’s favorite children, Borussia Dortmund U23, are the Regionalliga-West 2020/21 champions! They will be promoted to 3. Liga next season! (Tentatively, but we’ll get into that later.)

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Borussia Dortmund II (U23)

Regionalliga West

So, first things first, chronological order and whatnot: the mid-week game on June 1^st against SV Bergisch Gladbach 09. BVB II won that game 3-1 with goals from Richmond Tachie (25’), Dominik Wanner (67’), and Steffen Tigges (74’).

Substitutions were Cebrails Makreckis for Tobias Raschl (58’), Ansgar Knauff for Richmond Tachie (58’), Patrick Osterhage for Alaa Bakir (74’), and Florian Krebs for Marco Hober (84’).

Full match report as always at bvb.de

And now for the final game of the season: a 2-1 win over Wuppertaler SV on June 5^th. Steffen Tigges scored the all-important tying goal (47’) and Ansgar Knauff had the winning goal (89’). The U23s only needed one point from this game to clinch first place, but if you can get the win, why not.

Substitutions were Albin Thaqi for Henri Weigelt (46’), Cebrails Makreckis for Alaa Bakir (46‘), Ansgar Knauff for Richmond Tachie (72‘), and Florian Krebs for Marco Hober (88‘).

Full match report: bvb.de

One more time for good measure because this season was abnormally long and exhausting and crammed and we all deserve some good news:

SPITZENREITER SPITZENREITER HEY HEY

(BVB II finished the season with 27 unbeaten games. That’s impressive.)

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Looking Ahead

So, now the sort-of-maybe bad news: Rot-Weiss Essen, and then Bergisch Gladbach, are protesting the U23s win of the Regionalliga-West. The reason? How things went down with the COVID-19 quarantine during their pause. Is there substance to this? Maybe, but probably not. So, let’s celebrate the championship anyway.

Second order of business: the current discussion over whether second teams should be allowed to play in the third tier. On one hand, they take away spots from other deserving teams (RW Essen did play one hell of a season). On the other hand, BVB II also played a damn good season and deserve it just as much. They finished with 93 points (27W-12D-1L) and a +63 goal differential (94:31). Essen had 90 points. Third place Preußen Münster (who was relegated from 3. Liga last season) finished with 78 points. Those are dominant performances from the top two clubs.

I personally don’t have a big issue with it, but I do find it crazy that only first place gets promoted and second gets nothing. Now of course, there’s five Regionalligen and you can’t relegate 10 teams from 3. Liga. But perhaps, you could make a play-off tournament of sorts for those top 10 Regionalliga teams to compete for the four open 3. Liga spots.

Now to end on a positive note, here are some fun videos:

And lastly, this season may have been long and strenuous, but all in all it was successful for Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund. The women’s handball team went UNDEFEATED this Bundesliga Handball Frauen season and won the league with 60:0 points. The senior men’s team won the DFB Pokal and qualified for the UEFA Champions League. And now the U23s won the Regionalliga West and are promoted to 3. Liga.

Enjoy the summer, y’all! Be ready for when the season starts in late July!

Stats from kicker.de