For fifty-six minutes at Borussia-Park, this had the look of a rout. Borussia Mönchengladbach led 3-1, Franck Honorat was tormenting from the right, and the home crowd could finally sense a season stirring into life. Then SV Elversberg simply refused to accept the script. What followed was a collapse so complete, so bewildering, that the final whistle brought stunned silence where a celebration should have been.
Elversberg won it 4-3, the winning goal arriving in the second minute of stoppage time through Maurice Krattenmacher, who left the pitch with a matchball and a chapter of Bundesliga folklore. For the promoted side it was a second win from two, propelling them to third. For the hosts it was ruin: bottom of the table, no points from two games, and a hollow, familiar ache of a lead surrendered.
The margins between triumph and disaster have rarely felt so cruel. Mönchengladbach did almost everything right for an hour and finished with nothing. Elversberg did almost everything wrong for an hour and finished with everything.
A commanding start
The early rhythm belonged entirely to the hosts. Hugo Bolin met a corner in the eleventh minute and buried a header from very close range into the top-left corner, the sort of clean, decisive strike that suggested a comfortable afternoon lay ahead. Borussia-Park roared, and for a while the noise seemed justified.
David Mokwa punctured that certainty on twenty-nine minutes, finishing low into the bottom-left corner after Lukas Pinckert released him on a fast break. It was a warning, sharp and unmissable, about the counter-attacking teeth Elversberg carried. But the hosts answered emphatically before the interval, Bolin claiming his second, this time right-footed to the bottom-right corner, teed up by the excellent Honorat.
Half-time arrived with Mönchengladbach 2-1 up and Bolin the toast of the terraces. The forward had done everything asked of him, and the momentum felt firmly with the home side as the players trudged off.
The collapse begins
Eleven minutes into the second half, the lead looked decisive. Joe Scally arrived in the centre of the box to sweep left-footed into the bottom-right corner, Honorat again the architect after another lightning break. At 3-1 the game appeared over, the three points already being counted, the season's first celebration warming up.
Football, though, has a habit of punishing the presumptuous. Maurice Krattenmacher pulled one back on sixty-six minutes, stabbing home from very close range into the bottom-left corner, and suddenly the anxiety that has stalked this Mönchengladbach side all season crept back into the stands. One goal became a fragile, precious thing to protect.
They could not protect it. On eighty minutes Felix Keidel stood over a free-kick and curled it magnificently into the top-left corner, level at 3-3 and the visitors visibly surging. The home defence, so assured an hour earlier, had begun to buckle under the weight of its own nerves.
Krattenmacher's dagger
The equaliser might have brought a point apiece and a lesson learned. Instead Elversberg smelled blood. Deep into stoppage time, the counter that had defined their afternoon struck one final, fatal blow. Noel Futkeu broke clear and slid the ball to Krattenmacher, who steered a right-footed finish into the bottom-right corner for 4-3.
It was the perfect distillation of the match: ruthless on the break, clinical in the box, merciless in the moment. Krattenmacher's second of the day and Elversberg's fourth in thirty-four minutes completed a comeback that few in the stadium could quite believe they had witnessed.
For a promoted club, this is the stuff of instant legend. Two games, two wins, six points, and a place in the top three that no one outside their dressing room would have predicted. Their spirit, their belief and their cutting edge on the counter have already marked them out as far more than makeweights in this division.
Two seasons diverge
For Borussia Mönchengladbach the reckoning is severe. Bottom of the Bundesliga, zero points from two matches, seven conceded and a defensive fragility that is fast becoming the story of their campaign. To lose from 3-1 up at home, having led for so much of the afternoon, is the kind of result that lingers and gnaws. Bolin's two goals should have been the making of a big day; instead they are a footnote to a defeat that will sting for weeks.
The numbers tell a brutal tale. Three goals scored and still beaten, an inability to see out a game that was there to be won, and a growing sense that the confidence required to close matches has simply drained away. Early in a season is early, but points dropped in September are counted just as harshly come spring, and this pattern must be arrested before it hardens into crisis.
Elversberg, by contrast, travel home dreaming. Third in the Bundesliga, unbeaten, and buoyed by the belief that they can go anywhere and win. Their counter-attacking speed, embodied by Mokwa, Krattenmacher and Futkeu, will worry every side they face. When the fixtures resume, one club will be chasing ghosts and the other chasing a fairytale. On this evidence, few would bet against the newcomers keeping the dream alive a little longer yet.