Borussia Dortmund’s footballers kept their goal clean for 97 minutes on Wednesday evening. They were already looking forward to finally playing to zero again. But their Champions League opening game at Besiktas Istanbul lasted 100 minutes with three minutes of stoppage time in the first half and seven minutes in the second. The goal was conceded three minutes before the final whistle. Francisco Montero scored with a head to 1: 2 (90 + 4.). Defender Manuel Akanji stamped his foot angrily. The Dortmund team won anyway. The 2: 1 (2: 0) through goals from Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland was no hurray football, just okay football. “The win was the most important thing today,” said Bellingham, calling the game in front of enthusiastic Besiktas fans: “A pleasure!”
A good 20,000 domestic spectators in the half-empty stadium had fanatically cheered on a team whose starting line-up was only one Turk, goalkeeper Ersin Destanoglu. Nine Turkish players sat on the bench, among them the former Düsseldorf-based Kenan Karaman, who was later substituted on. At BVB there were only four German players in the starting line-up in Mahmoud Dahoud, Julian Brandt, Marco Reus and Mats Hummels, who made the debut of the season. The joy that Hummels returned as head of the defense was not a question of nationality. Because of knee pain, the 32-year-old had only played a total of 17 minutes in two Bundesliga games.
In the 6th minute, Hummels was immediately shocked. Istanbul center forward Michy Batshuayi let him out, but failed from a very short distance on BVB goalkeeper and Champions League debutant Gregor Kobel. The Belgian Batshuayi scored nine goals in 14 competitive games for BVB in the first half of 2018.
Dortmund showed a miserable first 20 minutes. Shrill fan whistles in their ears and a dust-dry, dull lawn at their feet, the Dortmunders hardly managed a clean, fast pass. No wonder that they prepared their 1-0 lead in the 20th minute with a long, high ball (Dahoud) and a direct volley (Thomas Meunier) on the 18-year-old Jude Bellingham, who shot in flat from an acute angle.
Haaland scores his 21st goal in the 17th Champions League appearance
In the third minute of stoppage time, the now dominant BVB increased to the 2-0 break. This time, Bellingham elegantly dribbled his way into the Besiktas penalty area after a throw-in from the left and passed the ball into the center, where Haaland inserted from five meters to his 21st goal in the 17th Champions League game (for Salzburg and Dortmund).
When asked about the nine goals against in four Bundesliga games, coach Marco Rose reacted with a sour look before the game. This time it would have been important to him to play to zero for better argumentation in terms of balance. That’s why he brought in Axel Witsel for Julian Brandt after the break and flattened the diamond – with Dahoud and Witsel as a double six.
Double winner Besiktas was unwilling to be set as an example by Rose. But the rooms were tight against a BVB who wasted opportunities in the front and buttoned up in the back – until stoppage time.
There was one more curiosity: In his second Champions League game, 16-year-old Youssoufa Moukoko got the chance to become the youngest Champions League scorer in history from the 70th minute. Instead, he had to be content with being the youngest Champions League player to receive a yellow card – for a swallow.
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