Rumination is bad. Actionism is good. It was all the more important for Borussia Dortmund’s footballers after the painful 4-0 debacle against Bayern Munich last Saturday that the game plan gave them the opportunity exactly 70 hours later to play a groundbreaking Champions League game against the Premier League again in their home stadium -Sixth to face Newcastle United. And to win.
Two weeks after their 1-0 win on the third group match day in Newcastle, Dortmund threw everything into it on Tuesday evening and led 1-0 at half-time thanks to the first Champions League goal of their 30-year-old center forward Niclas Füllkrug (26th minute). and defended their tenuous lead in a dangerous second half until Julian Brandt made everything clear on the counterattack in the 79th minute with the goal to make the final score 2-0. With another win in the next game at AC Milan on November 28th, BVB could book their place in the round of 16, which is a pretty good prospect.
“The first duels were directly on our side, we were immediately awake and had an extremely high intensity,” said Füllkrug, very satisfied, into the microphone after the final whistle Amazon Prime. This time he saw “decisive situations” going in favor of BVB, “scenes that we may have missed here and there in other games.”
Terzic trusts Füllkrug – and thus shows a good instinct
That was also a reference to the home defeat against Bayern. Füllkrug, however, believed his team had now been rehabilitated: “You can highlight a win like that, it was very important against a very strong team.” Füllkrug praised the fact that Dortmund “have now created a very good starting situation with hard work after a bad start to the group”.
The goalscorer Brandt admitted: “This victory was extremely good after we conceded four goals in this stadium three days earlier.” He liked it all the more “that we now kept a clean sheet.” And coach Edin Terzic was pleased that his team played “so disciplined” and was “ready for anything,” even when they threatened to “run out of things” in the final phase.
Dortmund started without Marco Reus and played through without Donyell Malen, without Marius Wolf and still without the injured Emre Can. Niklas Süle played at the back right and Karim Adeyemi was in the starting line-up at the front right for the first time in a month and a half. Füllkrug, who had previously failed to score three times in the Champions League and most recently three times in the Bundesliga, was still preferred over Sebastien Haller and Youssoufa Moukoko.
Terzic had shown a good feeling with Füllkrug. The international striker, who came from Werder Bremen, was the defining player in a first half that was largely dominated by Dortmund. Already in the 9th minute he forced a foul on Newcastle’s 19-year-old Champions League debutant Lewis Hall and thus an early yellow card. Afterwards, Füllkrug’s elbow had to be cooled. He grimaced, but he wasn’t affected. In the 13th minute he fired Dortmund’s first powerful shot on goal, but it took until the 26th minute before he gave BVB a 1-0 half-time lead.
After the break, BVB came under a lot of pressure
The goal was preceded by an almost teasing one-two with Marcel Sabitzer: Sabitzer with his heel, Füllkrug with his head, then Sabitzer’s pass into the center and Füllkrug’s presence of mind direct shot into the goal. Newcastle, who recently proudly defeated Arsenal in the Premier League and defeated Manchester United in the League Cup, acted cautiously and at times unexpectedly made mistakes, perhaps also because they were missing several relevant players.
After the break, the Brits’ rested top players Miguel Almiron and Anthony Gordon came off the bench. BVB immediately came under pressure. In the 56th minute, Joelinton headed the ball from five meters just past Gregor Kobel’s goal. The Dortmunders were now fighting for relief rather than for the second goal. But as the spaces opened up, they gradually received new opportunities, the best of which was taken by Brandt in the 79th minute with a counterattack to make it 2-0. Now the Westphalians enjoyed the cozy Champions League feeling in a truly challenging group, in which they had started badly with a 0-2 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain and a 0-0 draw against AC Milan.