Pure domination: Borussia beats the incumbent champion

Borussia Dortmund surprisingly beat incumbent champion VFL Wolfsburg by a clear 3:1 away in VW Arena. Borussia continued an impressive series with no losses in 9 games and closes the gap to the top teams, raising high expectations of the team.

Pre-match issues

Coach Klopp could relax and just rely on a team that was, first, successful in previous weeks and, second, did not incur any injuries during the week. Therefore, he concentrated on the successful 4-2-3-1 formation featuring a defence wit Hummels and Subotic guarded by Owomoyela and Schmelzer on the wings. Te exceptionally stable youngsters Sven Bender and Nuri Sahin played as defensivc midfielder, whereas Kuba and Großkreutz again started as offensive midfielders on the wings. Of course, Lucas Barrios took position as striker, supported by Momo Zidan who played as amalgamation of playmaker and striker.

VWolfsburg changed their system such that Dzeko played as the only striker leaving Grafite on the benches and Kahlenberg in the starting eleven.

1st half

Borussia began confidently by destroying any of Wolfsburg’s attempts to set up fast paced attacks. However, Hummels had to put every effort into preventing a promising Wolfsburg attack by rescuing with a risky tackle in the very last instance – some people might have called this a red card, but Hummels touched predominatnly, as we surely believe, the ball, and not the opponent’s foot (2’).

But just after 11 minutes were played it was Mohamed Zidan who was nicely served and who then duped Wolfsburg’s defence and had an eye for Lucas Barrios who had no difficulty in netting in for the 1:0 lead (8’).

The protagonists were the same just a couple of minutes later: Kuba beautifully served Zidan, who tricked Benaglio and put the ball through to Barrios who scored for his second goal of the match. (11’) Incredibly, Borussia was in the lead at least year’s champion VFL Wolfsburg, just after 11 minutes! Borussia’s supporters were thrilled.

Whoever believed that Borussia would now stick to tighten its defence was well surprised: Hummels’ header was somehow saved by Benaglio (36’), but just seconds afterwards, it was Owomoyela who scored after Benaglio saved a header by Hummels, which resulted from a free-kick by Zian (37’). As the eager reader must have noticed, Momo Zidan probably was the most outstanding player in black and yellow. Incredible, his performance!

Dortmund even had the chance for a fourth goal, but Barrios missed having been in front of Benaglio,

2nd half

In the second half, Borussia was concerned with more defensive work, which was natural as Wolfsburg tried to get back into the match quickly – and they managed to: Grafite was served by Hasebe and had no efforts to score from inside the box (55’). However, this was the only really dangerous attempt by Wolfsburg. Borussia’s defence stood firmly and shrugged off any try by Wolfsburg’s skilled offence. After 66 minutes, Dzeko had a half of a chance when slightly missing a pass by Grafite, but Subotic somehow coped with Wolfsburg’s (arguably) strongest striker. BVB actually had a couple of chances to reaffirm their strong performance by a fourth goal: Kuba played an intelligent pass to Großkreutz, who missed from 16 metres (73’) and Valdez, substituted for the injured Zidan, slightly missed the target (86’). Referee Kircher soon blew the whistle and made Borussia’s win reality.

Final Words:

An incredible performance which showed that Borussia can deliver high quality performance against strong teams (Wolfsburg, Hoffenheim) for quite a long period (9th match without loss!). In short, Borussia is on the track to establish in the upper third of the table. What follows, consequently, is obvious: An orientation towards Euro League. But as always in football: Things can change quickly (and badly), so Dortmunders should first be happy about the outcome of the last weeks and celebrate the 100th anniversary!

Line-ups and figures

BVB:

Weidenfeller (2.5) - Owomoyela (2), Subotic (2,5), Hummels (2.5), Schmelzer (3) - S. Bender (2), Sahin (1.5) - Blaszczykowski (2.5), Zidan (1.5), Großkreutz (3) - Barrios (1.5)

62’ Valdez (3) for Zidan

86’ Stiepermann for Barrios

90’ Santana for Großkreutz

Yellow cards: Großkreutz, Sahin

Wolfsburg

Benaglio - Riether , Ricardo Costa , Barzagli (43), M. Schäfer - Josué - Hasebe , Gentner - Misimovic, Kahlenberg - Dzeko

Yellow cards: Hasebe

Referee: Kircher

Stadium: VW Arena

Attendance: 30,000