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One the touchline, Jürgen Klopp and his assistant, Zeljko Buvac, lost it. The latter was sent to the stand, the former shouted at every official he could find. After the final whistle, Sebastian Kehl, who hadn't been able to come on in time, pushed the fourth official. The Borussia manager was still enraged enough to attack the man from Sky a few minutes later live on air. "Verdammte Scheisse, why aren't you listening to what I'm saying?" Klopp barked. The journalist's crime had been to question politely the manager's assertion that Götze's red was a gross miscarriage of justice. "For some people who have never played football it might look like retribution but it was nothing," said the 43-year-old. "They both got tangled up. When Balitsch moves his leg, he's also moving up Mario's leg."

So far, so bad. But Klopp went further, into uncharted territory, at least as far as the Bundesliga was concerned. In the process, 27 August 2011 became a day for German history books: it saw the first ever Bundesliga appearance of what is technically known as the Lee Cattermole defence. Oh yes, they did. All and sundry in black and yellow lined up to state that Götze emphatically wasn't that type of player.

Klopp will undoubtedly face the consequences of losing his head on the sidelines. It wasn't the first time, and it wasn't simply a rush of blood either, as Neue Ruhr Zeitung somewhat naively diagnosed. "Klopp doesn't act," they wrote. "Klopp is simply Klopp, even when he steps out of line. He truly believes [in Götze]. And he rages because he doesn't see it any other way."

To believe that is to seriously underestimate the dark side that lurks behind the floppy-haired, hoodie-wearing, I'm-your-best-buddy image. As a keen follower of the Premier League, Klopp is partial to a bit of managerial smoke-screening and official-pressuring His over-the-top reactions may have been fuelled by a real sense of injustice but it was also a piece of Narrentheater

Hertha 1-0 Stuttgart, Hamburg 3-4 Köln, Kaiserslautern 0-3 Bayern, Nürnberg 1-0 Augsburg, Hoffenheim 1-2 Bremen, Freiburg 3-0 Wolfsburg, Leverkusen 0-0 Dortmund, Hannover 1-1 Mainz, Schalke 1-0 Gladbach.