Captain Marco Reus may still intervene in the title fight of the Bundesliga for Borussia Dortmund despite his red card in the derby. The national player was suspended by the DFB sports court on Monday for two games and will be back on the last matchday against Borussia Mönchengladbach (18 May).
However, Reus will miss the matches at Werder Bremen on Saturday and against Fortuna Düsseldorf on 11 May. For his teammate Marius Wolf, who was suspended for three games, the season is over prematurely.
Reus had brought down his opponent Suat Serdar in full swing from behind with a slide at the 2:4 against Schalke 04 on Saturday (60th minute). According to his own statement, he had misjudged himself: “Anyone who knows me knows that I never want to hurt my opponent. I wanted to go to the ball, he took an intermediate step and I hit him on the Achilles tendon,” Reus said.
Nevertheless, referee Felix Zwayer (Berlin) immediately decided on red card, it was the first against Reus in his 259th Bundesliga game. Daniel Caligiuri turned the free-kick into a 1-3 lead, and shortly afterwards Wolf saw Serdar Rot for a rough foul.
Hans E. Lorenz, who as chairman passed the judgements of a single judge, saw a different quality in Wolf’s foul. “The cases similar to the external events differ in that Reus wanted to play the ball. The use of Wolf, on the other hand, was not ball oriented. He had no chance to reach the ball with his tackle,” he said.
Three match days before the end of the season, BVB are two points behind the leaders of the standings and defending champions Bayern Munich.
