Borussia Dortmund opened the new Champions League season by winning the final. The club owes this unusual circumstance to its advisor Matthias Sammer, who was keen to preventively promote the importance of the opening game against outsiders FC Copenhagen. In view of the next group games at Manchester City and Sevilla FC, Sammer described the home game against the Danish champions as “almost a final” before kick-off and thus defined a win as essential to avoid serious problems later in the tournament.
This precaution was then taken seriously, because Dortmund, who started without seven players and after 22 minutes were also tormented by bad luck with injuries with the muscular maltreated Thorgan Hazard as their eighth failure, fulfilled their duty in the 3-0 (2-0) victory with confidence. Marco Reus (35′), Raphael Guerreiro (42′) and Jude Bellingham (83′) scored the goals.
“I’m happy that we won this must-win game – but we have to keep improving,” said Reus on Amazon Prime: “We didn’t allow much at the back, but it was also important that we quickly made it 2-0 We missed that in the last Bundesliga games.” Reus was skeptical about the personal concerns. “We have to be a bit careful there,” he said, pointing out that the heavy burden of English weeks is only just beginning.
Already the night before there were fights in the city center between German and Danish fans
Ultimately, the game turned out to be less of a high-risk game from a sporting perspective than from a police perspective. The evening before, German and Danish fans had already fought each other in the center of Dortmund, and an hour before kick-off flares flew from the away block over the largely empty stands. When the ranks were filled, so many spectators (70,700) created a great atmosphere because standing room has recently been allowed in the Champions League and because standing was allowed again in the huge south stand.
This is Dortmund’s first goal of the Champions League season: Marco Reus (left) cheers, Anthony Modeste rushes over.
(Photo: Bernd Thissen/dpa)
However, all the fans had to learn painfully about a catastrophic personnel situation at BVB. The burns on the legs, which the stadium announcer Norbert Dickel, who was in the hospital, had suffered while having a barbecue at home, were the least of the evils, at least from a sporting point of view. Dortmund played without striker Sebastién Haller (chemotherapy), midfielder Mahmoud Dahoud (shoulder surgery), full-back Mateu Morey (knee surgery), strikers Jamie Bynoe-Gittens (shoulder surgery), Donyell Malen (muscle problems) and Karim Adeyemi (toe problems) – and above all for a short time without the goalkeeper Gregor Kobel (torn muscle fiber).
The substitute goalie Alexander Meyer, who had switched to Dortmund from the second division club Jahn Regensburg, was in goal, 31 years old and lacking any experience in either the Bundesliga or the Champions League. Meyer was lucky after a few seconds: a shot by Copenhagen captain Zeca grazed the outer post.
“The team did a great job,” praised coach Edin Terzic
Unfazed by this early shock and Hazard’s failure in the 22nd minute, captain Reus scored the 1-0 lead in the 35th minute on the assist of Julian Brandt. The move was initiated after a rescue operation in their own defense by central defender Niklas Süle, who was preferred to Mats Hummels. In the 42nd minute, left-back Guerreiro made it 2-0 after a one-two with Hazard’s substitute Giovanni Reyna. In this respect, there were still a few things that were good.
Before the eyes of Haller, a visitor from the stands, Meyer saved a shot from the guests at the beginning of the second half before little happened and Bellingham scored the final goal late in the game. “The team put in a great performance,” praised coach Edin Terzic: “We let the ball run, defended well, scored well – and are now working on getting even better.”