It’s been a difficult week for those connected with Borussia Dortmund.
Although thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt by the explosions which targeted their team bus, captain Marcel Schmelzer has since told a journalist how the players became all too aware of how close to tragedy they came as police announced details of their examination of the bus.
Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp, who was in charge at Dortmund before his move to England, also spoke of his shock at the attack. He said:
“Everybody can imagine it was a difficult moment for me because I don’t know how often I was in the team hotel with Dortmund. I know exactly the road. A lot of my friends were in the bus.
“I was really concerned, scared for them. In the first moment it was a bit of relief, then you hear the more information you get the more serious it got.
“I had contact with people but I didn’t want to bother them with my silly questions. I was waiting with the rest of the world.”
Clearly, as their meetings in last season’s Europa League have shown, Liverpool and Dortmund share a special bond. Aside from Klopp, we can all vividly remember supporters of the two clubs joining together at Westfalenstadion and Anfield for renditions of You’ll Never Walk Alone – a song fans of both clubs traditionally sing prior to kick off.
As well as this, you may also recall the tribute that travelling Dortmund fans played to the Hillsborough tragedy on their visit to Anfield last season. Coming on the eve of the 27th anniversary of the disaster, Dortmund fans prepared a ’96’ mosaic in the Anfield away end.
This week, a year on from that particularly memorable game of football, Dortmund have marked the 28th anniversary of the Hillsborough anniversary with a tweet.
Featuring an image of the two sides gathered on the Anfield centre circle for a moment’s remembrance that night, the tweet simply reads: ‘Never forgotten. JFT96’.
Never forgotten. #JFT96 pic.twitter.com/d001mdIsFS
— Borussia Dortmund (@BVB) April 15, 2017
In a week where Dortmund narrowly avoided a tragedy of their own, this seems all the more poignant.
