The cheering figure “Norwegian jumping jack” has never been seen before in the Bundesliga. For a film with a claim to historical and ceremonial completeness, Erling Haaland’s anarchic fidgety philippines moving sideways is absolutely necessary. Friday evening and the playing time were already advanced when the Norwegian scored the goal for Borussia Dortmund’s 3-2 (0-0) win against TSG Hoffenheim in the first minute of stoppage time. Thereupon all muscle tension escaped his body and you saw him with the body language of an over-turned ghost train skeleton rattling across the lawn, grinning madly. The Hoffenheimers felt accordingly creepy.
After five goal participations in the 5-2 victory in the league opener against Eintracht Frankfurt, Haaland had statistically held back in the 1: 3 in the Supercup against Bayern Munich and in the 1: 2 defeat in Freiburg. Against Hoffenheim, the 21-year-old was threatened with the third competitive game in a row without a scorer point, but when hardly anyone expected it, he achieved this all the more important goal with inimitable assertiveness.
His trainer Marco Rose accepted the subsequent dance battle and hopped along the outside line so exuberantly and throwing his fist that Jürgen Klopp can still learn something. After the game, Rose declared his relief: “There is still a lot we have to work on, but the win gives us peace and time to do it.”
What needs to be worked on is easy to see at BVB from the bare results. Two goals against Frankfurt, three in the Supercup against Bayern Munich, two in Freiburg and now two again against Hoffenheim. This is not a convincing defensive work and requires all the more hits up front to win. Five against Frankfurt and now three against Hoffenheim were enough, but only one hit against Bayern Munich and one in Freiburg meant defeats. As wobbly as a newborn giraffe, BVB is still in the early stages of the new season.
The final phase was tough anyway: 42 seconds before the end of regular time, Munas Dabbur equalized to 2-2 for Hoffenheim, a corner that Dortmund had badly defended. But after 53 seconds in stoppage time, Haaland scored the goal of the victory that lifted Dortmund to the top of the Bundesliga table at least overnight in front of 25,000 spectators.
Erling Haaland chased the ball under the bar with enormous force.
(Photo: Sascha Meiser via www.imago-images.de/imago images / Jan Huebner)
The most noticeable black and yellow factor in the game was that the man in black, Felix Zwayer, had to give Hoffenheim many yellow cards early on: to Christoph Baumgartner after ten seconds (!), To Stefan Posch after six minutes and to Dennis Geiger after 19 minutes. The guests wanted to buy the guts from their hosts, but rather ingloriously stole speed advantages from them and thus caused a certain resentment among the BVB staff.
The most noticeable black and yellow factor after that was the dominance of Westphalia, who pushed Hoffenheim to their own penalty area, but did not capitalize on one or the other good pass in the back of the TSG defense. Despite Dortmund’s oppressive superiority, the goalless draw at the break was okay because Andrej Kramaric with a header to the crossbar (3rd) and Baumgartner with a low shot to the foot from goalkeeper Gregor Kobel (39th) gave Hoffenheim the two best chances of the first Had half time.
There is a lack of regular staff in the defense
Rose continues to speak of a “construction site” that is being done back there because the head of defense, Mats Hummels, is still injured and there are other relevant alternatives with Emre Can and Dan-Axel Zagadou. Although two regulars had returned to the starting XI on the outside of the back four with Thomas Meunier and Raphael Guerreiro, the rather unfamiliar Axel Witsel had to help out again on the side of Manuel Akanji.
The chance from which Giovanni Reyna scored the 1-0 lead for Dortmund in the 49th minute was not the right one. Jude Bellingham had passed the ball to him, and Reyna pulled it from 15 yards. Because he found exactly the gap between the Hoffenheim central defenders Stefan Posch and Kevin Vogt with his shot, the ball rushed into the net for goalkeeper Oliver Baumann.
At the back of the construction site, however, it was still a long way from the end of the day. In the 59th minute, when he went it alone on BVB goal, Kramaric failed on the fabulous goalkeeper Kobel, but the latter had no chance when Baumgartner shot in from an acute angle to equalize 1: 1 in the 61st minute – exemplary staged by Geiger.
“Advertising for football”, Hoeneß calls the evening
Bellingham’s goal to make it 2-1 in the 69th minute, a precise shot from the edge of the penalty area into the left corner of the goal, seemed to decide the game in favor of Dortmund because Hoffenheim did not know how to convert its subsequent dominance into goals. But after a corner in the 90th minute, Dabbur managed to equalize, which was already wasted a minute and a half later.
Hoffenheim’s coach Sebastian Hoeneß praised the evening as an “advertisement for football”. Disappointed with the result, he still called himself proud of the performance of his team. He even sounded prouder than Rose, who was mostly relieved.