Nmecha's Two Long-Range Goals Lift Dortmund, and Spark a Debate Off the Pitch
Felix Nmecha scored twice from outside the penalty area to give Borussia Dortmund a 2-1 win over SV Elversberg on Saturday. Neither side had scored in the first half. Nmecha struck in the 55th and 71st minutes, and Elversberg brought a club-record away crowd to the Westfalenstadion to watch them lose.
Dortmund were without their injured centre-forward, Serhou Guirassy, so the goals came from midfield rather than the striker. The win kept Dortmund unbeaten. Going into the international break, they are level on points with Bayern Munich at the top of the Bundesliga, the German top flight. Bayern sit ahead on goal difference, the gap between goals scored and goals conceded.
Nmecha's celebration is what has people talking. After the second goal, he pointed to the sky, then mimed lifting a crown from his head and placing it on the ground. He made the same gesture after scoring against Paderborn in September, in front of the Südtribune, the 24,000-capacity terrace that houses much of the club's most committed support. He also did it when he scored Germany's opening goal at the World Cup against Curaçao.
The gesture is a nod to Ballers in God (BIG), a Christian group, and its campaign The King's Return. The group says its mission is to use football's global reach to make Jesus known. Nobody at the club has argued that a player should not hold a religious belief. The question is what the gesture stands for, and who else it speaks to.
German public broadcaster ARD has linked Ballers in God to ultra-conservative positions on homosexuality and transgender identity. The Guardian has also reported that in June Nmecha shared a social media post mocking the father of a transgender child.
Dortmund's fan and support department responded the day after the match. In a statement, it said the club cannot remain silent on discrimination, and that it must decide what image of society gets room at the club. The club has reportedly been in dialogue with Nmecha since the Paderborn game, and has said those talks will continue.
Nmecha was born in Hamburg in 2000. His mother is German and his father is Nigerian. He is listed as Dortmund's number 8, a box-to-box midfielder who covers ground both ways, and he stands 190 centimetres tall.
What makes this delicate is that it is not only about one player. A club has to answer for its own values, and for the values of the people who sing from its terraces. For now, Dortmund have a win, a title race and a conversation that is still going on.
