The morning after the Hertha Berlin match, the Dortmund training ground was a strange mix of festive cheer and professional focus.
The players, dressed in their winter training gear, gathered in the main briefing room, their faces a mixture of relief, satisfaction, and a hint of holiday anticipation.
The air was filled with the low hum of conversation, the easy camaraderie of a team that had just ended the first half of the season on a high note.
They were top of the Bundesliga, three points clear of a resurgent Bayern Munich. It was a slender lead, a precarious perch at the summit of German football, but it was a lead nonetheless.
They had navigated a brutal first half of the season, a relentless gauntlet of domestic and European fixtures, and they had emerged, battered and bruised, but on top.
