By Eric Dean
eric@canucks-abroad.com

Rob Friend: Source: CSAThe Final week has come and gone in the German Bundesliga (the top tier football league in Germany) and off the pitch, Canadian forward Rob Friend will share a sigh of relief with his Borussia Monchengladbach teammates - including Paul Stalteri - as they finished one point ahead of Energie Cottbus who occupy the final relegation spot [Al: Though not so good for the four young Canucks at Cottbus - Straith, Smith, Porter and Cook - and Cottbus II's newest CMNT call up, Eddy Sidra]. This means that the recently promoted “Die Fohlen” will stay in the top league for another season. A 1-1 home draw with Dortmund was enough to secure the final spot above the drop zone as well as hand Rob Friend the golden boot for the team with 7 league goals. The last few months however have not been so friendly for the Canadian, as he missed the relegation battle with a season ending ankle injury.

Rob’s first taste of German top flight football came on August 17, 2008 at home to VfB Stuttgart and he continued his goal scoring prowess of a season ago by notching his first goal of the season in a 3-1 loss to Stuttgart. The next three games also proved fruitful as Friend notched 2 more to sit at 3 in four games, however M’Gladbach were sitting 1-3-0 and close to the bottom of the league. The next two months would prove to be painful for Rob as he went goalless in 8 straight league games and the losses began to pile up and prepare M’Gladbach for a season long relegation battle. The team fired manager Jos Luhukay and replaced him with technical sporting director Christian Ziege, to try and turn the tide of the sinking ship.

For Friend successive goals followed the drought in helping salvage a 2-2 home draw with powerhouse Bayern Munich, however were not enough to overcome a 3-1 defeat away to Champions League qualifiers Schalke ’04. And again the goalless streak came in. Three months long this time (including the one month winter break) and seven games of not finding the back of the net provided M’Gladbach with only 4 points of a possible 21 and increase their chances of relegation back to the German Second Division. Reinforcements of Canadian Teammate Paul Stalteri, and Belgian Logan Bailly were brought in the winter transfer window to try and spark Die Fohlen back into the Bundesliga safety zone.

And then something magical happened, Friend notched another two goals in two successive wins at home to Hamburg and away at Cologne to make it the first time this season they had successive wins and strung together 3 in four games. This infusion of points gave M’Gladbach a fighting chance for survival. This however would have to be without the services of the Canadian tower, as he picked up a heal injury in training before a pivotal April 5th clash against relegation battlers Karlsruhe. This injury required minor surgery and would ultimately cost the Canuck the rest of his season and force M’Gladbach to continue the battle without the services of its leading scorer for the past two seasons.

For Die Fohlen, it was a battle right to the finish. Poor results left them in a very deep hole: a draw against then bottom club Karlsruhe, a late loss to Wolfsburg and a big loss in Frankfurt left them in the precarious relegation playoff spot (16th place) with only six games to go. Another depressing draw against another relegation struggler Arminia Bielefeld and an expected loss to Bayern could have been the end but the teams behind them struggled to gain ground. Then with just four games to go, an improbable last minute victory against Schalke and a do-or-die win in Cottbus put ‘Gladbach into safety in 15th place, just ahead of Arminia Bielefeld on goal difference. They managed to survive, despite a 5-0 thrashing by Bayer Leverkusen on the 2nd last weekend, with a 1-1 draw on the final day of the season against Borussia Dortmund. The seven points garnered in the final four games gave the Canadian reason to be happy as the lads survived the season finishing in 15th place and securing Bundesliga soccer would be played in front of the passionate fans of Borussia-Park throughout the 2009-10 season.

For Rob Friend, his first Bundesliga season will be remembered as quite a rollercoaster with many goal scoring peaks and valleys, however, he should hold his head high as he lead the team in scoring while missing the later part of the season and ultimately contributed to the initial points needed to secure a place in the German top division for next season.