Dortmund proud to get Bundesliga ball rolling

Two match days into the Bundesliga's restart, Borussia Dortmund could hardly have scripted a smoother return. The German giant, though, remains reluctant to dish out advice on the matter as the Chinese Super League continues to consider how best to kick off its delayed 2020 kickoff.

With the Bundesliga becoming the first major European league to resume amid the COVID-19 crisis on May 16, Dortmund wrote a memorable footnote for the occasion by netting the first goal of the restart in a 4-0 Revierderby derby rout of Ruhr rivals Schalke.

Scorer Erling Haaland even marked his feat with a socially distanced celebration－almost enough to make up for the total lack of fans in the stands.

On Saturday, second-place Dortmund followed that up with a 2-0 win at Wolfsburg. Most importantly, it appears to be a case of 'so far, so good' as far as health and safety is concerned.

But Dortmund managing director Carsten Cramer says he and the rest of the league aren't about to start patting themselves on the back yet. And he is keen to stress that the Bundesliga's return should not be viewed as some kind of blueprint for the CSL and other leagues as they ponder resumptions of their own.

"Each of us has to find our own solution. The only thing I would send as a message around the world is that it is possible to restart," Cramer told China Daily in a video-chat interview over the weekend.

"Of course, much work and preparation has to be done but as long as you are able to convince stakeholders, as long as you are able to present a concept and ensure that everyone is interested to give you the opportunity to restart.

"That's my recommendation: Not only to accept the situation, not only to complain about the current situation. And that's the message from German football: It is possible."

Huge pressure

With the authorities and media taking some convincing of soccer's return in a country where, according to the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases, over 8,000 people have lost their lives to the virus, Cramer admits that the pressure to kick off without a hitch was "huge".

"We knew if we failed by making the first step, how could we know that the other eight steps would follow. Therefore, the first step was so important."

"To make it happen was a big compliment to the German Football League (DFL), who developed a concept which convinced the government and the decision makers that football will be able to resume.

"The main pillar of the plan was a perfect health concept."

As part of that concept, stringent safety rules are being enforced. Players were quarantined for eight days prior to the first match; everyone involved in a game is tested for the virus every three days; the amount of people at the stadium is limited to 300 on match days ("To execute this in real life is really challenging," said Cramer of that particular regulation); while fans are also prohibited from congregating outside venues.

"To make the restart possible with all the conditions that we had to meet was the biggest challenge," said Cramer, who was one of the four permitted BVB officials in the stands at Wolfsburg on Saturday.

"It worked but there's still a long run in front of us. To summarize our current feeling, no one is really euphoric, we are just relieved and happy that we made the first steps and we know there is a lot of pressure for the remaining steps as well."

Perhaps nowhere is the absence of fans at matches more keenly felt than at Dortmund's 81,000-capacity Signal Iduna Park, home to the spine-tingling splendor of The Yellow Wall－Europe's largest standing-only terrace which usually accommodates 25,000 hardcore Dortmund devotees who always make their presence felt.

Yellow void

"Games without spectators are not the games you are dreaming about," admitted Cramer.

"So if you have the biggest crowd in live German football, if you have the biggest stand, the Yellow Wall, if you have 155,000 members, if you have 55,000 season-ticket holders－when no one of them are allowed to join the game, of course this is a disadvantage.

"But Dortmund, as we said before, we don't complain. We accept that this might be a condition for the next weeks and that's the only way to come out of this crisis."

Cramer credits head coach Julien Favre and his squad for demonstrating "extraordinary" focus to bag six points from two games so far.

"I think that's a big advantage of our team and our players and a big compliment to them," he said.

"They accepted the current risk situation, they focused on playing a game, like the derby, and they were at the moment from the kickoff 100 percent dedicated and focused to winning the game. And that's extraordinary what they have done."

Not all of Europe's big guns can claim to be singing off the same hymn sheet like Dortmund, however. Last week, Chelsea midfielder N'Golo Kante missed the Blues' return to training citing fears over the virus, while Newcastle United defender Danny Rose slammed the English Premier League's 'Project Restart' plans as a "joke".

Cramer insists, though, there were no such dissenters in Dortmund's camp.

"We would fully understand if a player had concerns like the Chelsea guy. There is no pressure on players that they have to train," he said.

"The only thing we asked of them was to reduce their salaries for a certain time. That was not a big question for the players. Everyone agreed that during corona time, they have to make some commitment like this.

"But none of our players insisted to stay at home and, honestly, they were really looking forward to starting to play and to train as a team. They were really happy that some kind of normal life was coming back to them."

As for what the future might hold for Dortmund and German soccer in general in these uncertain times, Cramer refrains from looking too far ahead.

"I always like to think positive, the glass is always half full," he said.

"I don't want to waste my energy or my thoughts over cases which might take place, as long as we have the chance to finish the Bundesliga.

"But of course had we not we restarted, the problems would not have been small, because the money from the sponsors and the media wouldn't arrive, but the expenses would still be on a certain level.

"So we are just glad to be able to resume and for the future of Bundesliga it was really, really important."