The match was set to kick off at 6:00 PM on September 17th.
On the afternoon of the 16th, after finishing their training session and having dinner, the Dortmund team packed their bags and headed for Duesseldorf International Airport.
They were on an 8:00 PM Austrian Airlines flight, which landed at Vienna International Airport at 9:35 PM.
The team bus was already waiting for them on schedule.
According to the schedule, they would return to Dortmund the same night after the match on the 17th.
This was because on the 20th, the team had to travel to Hanover to face Hannover 96.
The away game wasn't far—just over 200 kilometers—but the match was scheduled for 2:00 PM.
So, Dortmund was on a very tight schedule.
To make matters worse, after the Hannover 96 match, they would return to Dortmund for a brief rest before immediately playing an away game against Karlsruhe in the second round of the DFB-Pokal.
Karlsruhe was a full 300-plus kilometers away from Dortmund.
