The best 90 minutes possible

Just watched the tape-delayed broadcast of the Bundesliga match between Borussia Dortmund and Paderborn, and I've got to say that it's the best advertisement for the game possible.

Paderborn are new to Bundesliga 1 ... hell, they're new to Bundesliga 2 for that matter. They came into today with a grand total of 4 points [to Dortmund's 19], and only one win. There wasn't a single player in Paderborn colors I'd ever heard of. Dortmund? One of the elites in Europe AND playing at home for 70,000+ plus in their stadium. I'm betting Paderborn hasn't drawn that many aggregate all season. They only hold a little over 15k.

Paderborn came out with one thought in mind: ATTACK! And that's what they did. They ran the legs off Dortmund, who had every right to expcct that Paderborn would hope to keep the defeat to an unembarassing level. Instead, they took over the match from the first. To keep a long story short, at half-time it wa 0-3 and Dortmund -- home of the most adoring supporters in the world -- were booed off the pitch. Their #1 striker left on the stroke of 45 minutes with injury, and the announcers [and yours truely] couldn't believe what they'd seen in the first half.

Dortmund responded by using their other two subs to start the second half and took over the match. Ultimately, after two minutes of extra time, they equalized and the match ended 3-3. That's the numbers. Paderborn, it must be said, continuted to counter-attack with speed and aggression. Twice in the second half, they might have put the match out of reach. I can't remember enjoying a match as much as I did this one.

Here's the PS. While Dortmund will be meeting Barcelona midweek in the Champions League, Paderborn will be enjoying as much as they can their remaining matches in the Bundesliga 1. They're broke. How broke? They have MINUS money to spend in January. They went into debt getting promoted and can't even consider the possibility of buying the one player who might keep them in the league next season.

But today, they took on the royalty in the league, and they scared the crap out of them and their 70,000 supporters. And that, my friends, is what makes football the greatest sport on the planet.