Anyone who thinks of Borussia Mönchengladbach’s most successful period naturally has the 1970s in mind. The foals were German champions five times between 1970 and 1977. The first two titles won the Borussia under Hennes Weisweiler, the three following with head coach Udo Lattek. Marco Rose cannot yet compete with the two greats in the club’s history, but there is even something that the current coach of Gladbacher has ahead of his prominent predecessors.
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Borussia won 28 of the 52 Bundesliga games under Rose. The win rate of 54 percent is the highest of any Gladbach coach in history. No other coach even gets 50 percent. Accordingly, his point average of 1.9 points per game is the best in the history of the Elf from Niederrhein. The league leaders Bayern Munich and BVB, who both left Borussia-Park empty-handed, recently saw how strong the foals are under Rose.
These games were the climax so far of a very strong start to the fourth year of the previous year. 13 of 15 possible points were achieved in 2021 – only Eintracht Frankfurt can keep up. The traditional club last came out of the starting blocks so well after New Year’s Eve in 2012. As a reward, Gladbach is back in the top third of the table for the first time since the 6th matchday and is back in touch with the Champions League.
>>> Perfect start to the second half of the season for the foals
This is exactly where you want to compete again in the coming season. This season, Borussia caused a sensation in the preliminary round and prevailed in a group with Inter Milan and Real Madrid as second in the table. In the second round at the end of February, Manchester City with ex-Bayern coach Guardiola is waiting for the foals.
These highlight games are the reward for the strong first Rose season. With 65 points they drove the second-best yield since the introduction of the three-point rule for the 1995/96 season. It was “only” enough for 4th place, but to put the performance in relation: In 1976 and 1977 Borussia became German champions with 61 points each.
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Successful standards
This season, Marco Rose’s team often gave up games that were believed to be safe late in the first half of the season, but this curse now seems finally to be broken. The secret of success is increasingly turning out to be the strength of the ball at rest: The 16 Gladbach goals by standards are by far the most in the Bundesliga – and Borussia scored five of them in the last three Bundesliga games. Against BVB it was almost historic: for the first time in 26 years, the foals scored more than two standard goals in one game.
Of course, Marco Rose was also approached after the game against BVB. The 44-year-old was almost a little surprised by the extremely good record: “I honestly have to admit that we practice it little or not at all. We tend to talk about positioning, what we want and what our opponents do, of course.” , said Rose after the game against BVB.
His players obviously listen very carefully to his theory sessions and accept the help of their coach very well – not only in terms of set pieces. This also explains why players like Lars Stindl, Florian Neuhaus or Jonas Hofmann – to take only three out – have made another leap in performance since Rose’s arrival on the Lower Rhine in 2019. Rose just makes the most of his squad. And there they are again, the parallels to Weisweiler or Lattek.
Florian Reinecke
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