Borussia Dortmund has returned to a Champions League spot after almost three months of abstinence. With a comfortable 2-0 (1-0) win at Bayer Leverkusen, the third win in the third game of the year, Borussia took fourth place in the table on Sunday evening and also came within three points of leaders FC Bayern. Munich only drew three times. Borussia, on the other hand, managed to get off to a nine-point start against Augsburg, Mainz and now Leverkusen within eight days and thus catch up with the champions by six points. “BVB is back,” sang the Dortmund fans who had traveled with them shortly before the end. It sounded like a declaration of war.
For Leverkusen, the defeat ended for the time being the rise in the table from the basement to midfield after five wins in a row. “More and more automatisms are emerging, but we still have a lot of catching up to do,” sporting director Simon Rolfes said before the game. The defeat confirms it, but the Rhinelanders are still aiming for a place in the table, which at the end of the season means they will be eligible to play in a European competition.
It was one of BVB’s best and most stable performances over 90 minutes in this season, which has been so changeable so far. At the back they kept the fast Leverkusen attackers in check and played purposefully in front of goal. “The team did it really, really well,” praised BVB sports director Sebastian Kehl after the game at Dazn, calling the win “extremely important because it was a trend-setting game.”
Well-known footballers such as Youssoufa Moukoko, Marco Reus, Giovanni Reyna, Mats Hummels and Donyell Malen were only on the bench for Dortmund at the beginning. After the return of almost all injured players, there is now almost a surplus at BVB. Mahmoud Dahoud and Thorgan Hazard didn’t even make the bench. Dortmund’s starting line-up came as a bit of a surprise: Marius Wolf in the back on the right, Julian Ryerson on the left, defensively central Emre Can, in front of them Salih Özcan and Julian Brandt on the left and right in front, and Sebastian Haller in the lead with his starting line-up debut.
At BVB, people like Dahoud or Hazard don’t even sit on the bench in Leverkusen
Ryerson was preferred to left back because of his speed over Raphael Guerreiro. He initially had a bit of a problem with the nimble Leverkuseners Moussa Diaby and Jeremie Frimpong. In the 19th minute Diaby appeared alone in front of goalkeeper Gregor Kobel after a dream pass from Florian Wirtz, but failed. It should remain the best Leverkusen chance in the whole game.
The first half was a bit shaky at times. When two teams this fast meet, football sometimes looks a bit like ice hockey. The ball then flipped across the field like a puck. The only completed attack of the first half came from Dortmund in the 33rd minute. Brandt played the ball in from the right, Haller cleverly let it through and saw Karim Adeyemi how he was able to accept it freely and make it 1-0. For the 21-year-old native of Munich, who came from Salzburg in the summer for 30 million euros, it was the first Bundesliga goal for Dortmund. He had scored once each in the Champions League and in the DFB Cup, but he saved his first league goal for a particularly important game.
This goal forced Leverkusen to put more pressure on after the break. They had gotten used to the sweet feeling of winning through their previous five victories in a row, but the Dortmunders shattered their longings all too quickly. In the 53rd minute, the advanced Wolf brought a sharp ball into the center from the right, which unfortunately jumped on the knee of Leverkusen central defender Edmond Tapsoba and from there into his own goal. In the 70th minute, the 23-year-old from Burkina Faso almost scored a second own goal, but his colleague Frimpong saved on the goal line.
Only in the 85th minute did Hummels and Reus, who had recovered from a protracted ankle infection, come into play. “We had a really strong bench today,” said coach Edin Terzic happily. The personnel possibilities could have a positive influence on Dortmund’s performance. “Bayern’s draw played into our hands,” said goal scorer Adeyemi, letting it be known that Dortmund are slowly focusing on the leaders again.
