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reThe situation at Borussia Dortmund remains difficult during those first days of December, when the club would have loved to shake off the frustration of the Bundesliga defeat to Cologne the previous weekend. With a rather gray 1: 1 against Lazio Roma they achieved their minimum goal, the knockout stages of the Champions League, but the team is currently experiencing a small decline in performance. Raffael Guerreiro had put BVB ahead, Ciro Immobile drew with a penalty in this first match of the 2020 European Cup, which BVB had to play without long-term Champions striker Erling Haaland.
The Norwegian had scored 16 goals during his twelve missions in this competition, but now he had torn some muscle fibers in final training. “He won’t play until early January,” said coach Lucien Favre; that was a shock even before the start. For a long time, the Dortmund team had survived these stressful weeks relatively well: “We had no injuries,” explained the coach, “and now suddenly” his team was also hit.
Emre Can and Thomas Meunier were out too, and to top it all, Mats Hummels was injured in injury time and limped off the field. “Mats is a tough guy, I hope he’s available again on Saturday,” Marco Reus said later in a first reaction. The fact that the coach had made seven changes to the starting XI compared to the previous Bundesliga weekend was undoubtedly due to a poor performance in the 1: 2 match against 1. FC Köln. Jadon Sancho, Axel Witsel and Julian Brandt initially sat outside.
“Incredible. This is theater.”
This renewed team played more committed and delivered, at least in the first half. However, even on this day, the best actions were mixed with mistakes and inaccuracies. Good ideas in the construction of the game were lacking for a long time and balls were lost several times, which provided a good base for the Romans’ attacks. And on the offensive, BVB’s actions often looked too cumbersome. But the Bundesliga club often has a hard time dealing with well-organized opponents.
The first good chance came from Lazio professional Joaquín Correa, who shot point-blank goalkeeper Roman Bürki (19th). A little later, Sergej Milincovic-Savic appeared in a good position in front of Dortmund’s goal at the end of the most beautiful attack of the first half, but played sideways instead of finishing himself. (28). Dortmund were dangerous soon after with two shots in quick succession by Marco Reus and Giovanni Reyna, but in both cases the angle was relatively sharp (29 °). The game was now relatively even, without becoming high class, and as the first goalless goal. The break became more and more likely, but BVB still scored. After a long ball intercepted by the opposing goalkeeper Reina and an assist from Hazard, Guerreiro made it 1-0 somewhat happily (45th).
Ironically, Immobile (right) hits: The Lazio striker played once for BVB.
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Image: Reuters
The longer the second half lasted, the clearer Dortmund’s tendency to carelessness became. Lazio played more and more strongly. After an hour Bürki had to dodge a dangerous 16-meter shot from Immobile, and five minutes later Milinkovic-Savic fell in a duel with Nico Schulz, who had just been replaced by a sick Guerreiro, in the penalty area. Immobile converted the next penalty, which was considered controversial by many professionals at BVB and also on the Dortmund side, to 1: 1 (67). This goal left its mark on Borussia, who were very insecure for a few minutes. Delaney still had a chance to take the lead (78th), but the Italian guests were still more dangerous, Bürki saved several times.
“We had our chances to score, we could make it 2-0 or 2-1. We receive an unnecessary penalty that is not. That is incredible. It’s theater, it’s in the pool. You are exaggerating. But we are qualified, period. Finished. That’s the most important thing, ”coach Favre said after the final whistle. And captain Reus sums it up: “We were too low in the second half and we fell far behind. We no longer had access, that cannot happen at home. We would have liked to finish the group first with a victory. “
BVB has thus reached the knockout stage of the Champions League, but is not ready to make a relaxed journey to the final match of the group stage in Saint Petersburg. It’s still about first place at the final table, and that may be important because if you were the group winner in the next round, you would be runner-up. This could be a crucial advantage on the way to the next round.
