Sometimes football games that haven’t really started yet seem to be decided with the first explosive action. This is what happened to Borussia Dortmund – three days after the embarrassing 2-0 defeat against VfB Stuttgart in the round of 16 of the DFB Cup competition. This Saturday evening in the Bundesliga, everything was supposed to get better for the fifth-placed team in the home game against fourth-placed RB Leipzig. And then this.
Before the black-yellow game could take on anything like a promising outline, a so-called emergency brake from national player Mats Hummels against Leipzig center forward Lois Openda (12th minute) caused a turning point. Why? Because referee Sven Jablonski initially awarded a penalty because he had located Borussia’s kick in the penalty area and therefore sanctioned Hummels with a yellow card. On the advice of video assistant Pascal Müller, Jablonski made sure that the foul had occurred outside the penalty area. As a result, Leipzig was only awarded a free kick with no consequences and Hummels was now shown a red card.
“Of course it is extremely bitter to lose such an extremely important player right from the start,” said national player Julian Brandt on Sky. Hummels himself commented on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) immediately after the final whistle: “A huge compliment to the fans and the team for their morale today. The defeat is on me, I can never go down the stretch and leave the boys on the field for 80 minutes with one less man.”
BVB doesn’t give up
The duel between the two pursuers of the current top teams Leverkusen, Munich and Stuttgart had another bitter punch line for BVB when Borussia’s Bensebaini scored an own goal with his head after a corner kick from Raum, which not even the famous goalkeeper Gregor Kobel could prevent (32.). The Swiss, unfazed, stood in the way of almost all of the Saxons’ shot attempts before and after and therefore kept his team in the game.
What seemed almost hopeless ended up 1-1 in this strange duel. In the last sequence of the first half, Julian Brandt had another opportunity to cross the ball in front of the goal after a corner he took and defended. And the Bremen native did this so precisely that the highly active central defender Niklas Süle, who came on as a substitute after Hummels was sent off, volleyed the ball past goalkeeper Blaswich and into the goal (45th + 5). Then Jablonski whistled for the break in a one-sided but far from decided duel in which Borussia Dortmund, being outnumbered, brilliantly defended itself against the impending defeat.
What the 81,365 spectators saw in the sold-out stadium was something like a sporting survival fight in which the equalizer gave Dortmund a breath of fresh air. RB, on the other hand, continued to combine towards the Borussia goal in the knowledge that they could exploit their own superiority until the final moment. With one difference: BVB now understood that not everything was decided in this unequal, exhausting and therefore fascinating duel.
Or was that it? In the 54th minute, Kobel once again parried a Leipzig shot, this time by Xavi Simons – unfortunately forward, where the Austrian national player Christoph Baumgartner gratefully accepted the opportunity to score the goal. 1:2 – would Dortmund also find an answer to this low blow? The chances were slim, but BVB’s fighting spirit seemed unbroken – in this against-all-odds compensation game after the Stuttgart humiliation. This is also why the BVB fans supported their team at every opportunity.
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And Leipzig? Substituted the second storm: Poulsen, Forsberg and Sesko came on for Openda, Xavi and Baumgartner (76th). Good luck to those who have substitutes like that. Dortmund held out. Malen and Reyna were supposed to get the black and yellow attack department going again (83′). The two full-backs Meunier and Bensebaini made way for them.
On both sides it was all or nothing in the final phase of a rare duel in which Dortmund rehabilitated themselves and Leipzig was all too wasteful with their opportunities. Until the first minute of added time. The Dane Yussuf Poulsen gave himself a clear shot and didn’t give Kobel a chance to intervene. Borussia Dortmund struck back again in this thriller and reduced the score to 2:3 (90th + 3) thanks to Füllkrug. Reyna (90+5) could have even equalized had goalkeeper Blaswich not been there in flight. Then this crime thriller was over. The people of Leipzig took a deep breath. They had done it, but they were also pretty exhausted on this extraordinary evening of football.
