A comeback victory at the Signal Iduna Park may have appeased the fans of Borussia Dortmund, who can look build on this win and keep climbing the Bundesliga table.
A wild Friday night affair saw Borussia Dortmund come back from a halftime deficit to take an important three points with a 4-2 win over Mainz. The visitors led twice but couldn't hold on, and will rue the chance to take at least a point in the ridiculously-tight bottom of the Bundesliga.
This was supposed to be the match that kept the momentum going for BVB. After recording their first league win in six matches last week, Borussia Dortmund climbed out of the basement of the Bundesliga. However, they found themselves behind just 55 seconds into the match against Mainz 05.
Elkin Soto opened the scoring almost instantaneously, chipping in from the top left corner of the box to the bottom right corner of the goal after Roman Weidenfeller tried to clear. Despite Dortmund having some good looks at goal (like Marco Reus hitting the post just a minute later), they looked good value for their lead after the first half. Solid defending for the most part coupled with some good saves by backup keeper Stefanos Kapino meant they took a 1-0 lead into the break.
Ten minutes into the second half, Dortmund equalised from a corner, with Neven Subotić heading home. This began the scoring explosion of four goals within 25 minutes, although at the time we hardly knew it was the beginning of the end for Mainz.
In the 55th minute, Marco Reus deked Kapino and finished to make it 2-1 in favour of Die Schwarzgelbe. The lead didn't last long though, as Yunus Malli brought it back to level pegging two minutes later. The Mainz winger's shot flew into the top right corner, giving Weidenfeller no chance.
In the 71st minute, we witnessed what we had been missing for the majority of the season with Reus out injured. With the outside of his boot, the winger scooped a perfect through ball to Aubameyang, and the Gabon international put just enough into the finish to see it roll past Kapino and into the net to give the home side the lead. Aubameyang almost had his second nine minutes later, but the 20-year-old Greek keeper managed to parry his free kick. Unfortunately for Die Nullfünfer, it was right into the path of Shinji Kagawa, who tucked it away to make it 4-2 for Jürgen Klopp's side.
The home side were able to see out the final ten minutes and, thanks to the win, didn't have to apologise to any angry fans after this one.
Borussia Dortmund: Roman Weidenfeller; Lukas Piszczek, Neven Subotić, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Marcel Schmelzer; Ilkay Gündogan, Nuri Sahin; Kevin Kampl (Henrik Mkhitaryan 70') , Shinji Kagawa (Mattias Ginter 78'), Marco Reus (Adrián Ramos 84'); Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Goals: Subotić (49'), Reus (55'), Aubameyang (71') Sahin (79').
Mainz 05: Stefanos Kapino; Daniel Brosinski, Niko Bungert, Stefan Bell, Pierre Bengtsson; Julian Baumgartlinger, Johannes Geis, Elkin Soto; Yunus Malli, Shinji Okazaki (Pablo De Blasis 82'), Jonas Hofmann (Ja-Cheol Koo 55').
Goals: Soto (1') Malli (57').
3 things
1. Dortmund still have issues- With Mats Hummels out, the defence was always going to be that much more vulnerable. However, conceding in the first minute and just two minutes after pulling ahead shows that there is a tendency to fall asleep at important moments in the match.
2. But playing Aubameyang up front is just what they needed- Strikers Ciro Immobile and Adrián Ramos have struggled to find consistency this season, combining for just 10 goals in about 3000 minutes of Bundesliga action. However, the pace threat of Aubameyang offers another dimension for BVB's attack, and maybe most importantly allows them to deploy three great attacking midfielders at their natural position, rather than having PEA on the wing.
3. Mainz may be real relegation candidates- They may have beaten fellow battlers SC Paderborn 5-0 to begin the Rückrunde, but just one victory since October 18th is shocking form. Their next seven matches are all against teams above them in the table, so unless they can spring an upset or two, it could start to get interesting --in a bad way-- for Mainz.
Source SBNation.com - All Posts http://ift.tt/173hhjk
No comments:
Post a Comment