Thanks to Jet Blue’s DirectTV feed I was able to catch Borussia Dortmund’s second only loss of the Bundesliga season, to Eintract Frankfurt. We in the CultFootball bullpen have been meaning to spend more time with the German league, but with our attention split between england, spain, italy and all the cups, sacrifices had to be made. Amazing how a cross-country flight can provide such needed pockets of time.

Dortmund have an interesting history, having had some significant successes in the 90s with consecutive league titles followed the next year with a Champions League win over Zidane’s Juventus, and a subsequent Intercontinental Cup win over Brazilian side Cruzeiro. Going into the Christmas break they’re 10 points above their closest rival in the league though they were unceremoniously dumped from the Europa Cup by Sevilla.

But back to Frankfurt, who stopped Die Schwarzgelben from achieving the most points of any team in the first half of Bundesliga play, ever. Frankfurt have league goals-leader, the Greek striker Fanis Gekas, and he came up big with a stinging goal minutes from the end of regulation.

Also on Frankfurt is American holding midfielder Ricardo Clark, though of late he’s been playing in a center-back position. Not this time against Dortmund, where Clark was released to roam forward, and he did well with his limited touches, concentrating more on restricting the movement of the excellent Turkish-born German midfielder Nuri Kazım Şahin.

We’d like to say more about Clark, but he hasn’t done tons this year having only played four games on his way back from injury. He’s managed a massive two shots on goal all told, but let’s hope he hits his best in the new year.