Borussia Dortmund lost an away game for the first time this year – and has to be angry about the 1-2 defeat in the quarter-final first leg at Atlético Madrid. Both of the Spaniards’ goals to give them a 2-0 half-time lead resulted from major defensive mistakes by Dortmund. Thanks to Sebastien Haller’s goal, BVB still has every chance of reaching the semi-finals in the second leg next Tuesday (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Champions League and on Prime Video).
The false start was announced early on. Less than two minutes had been played in Madrid when BVB ran into Atlético’s first counterattack in a rather naive manner. In his 500th game in a BVB uniform, Mats Hummels misjudged the Spaniards’ transition play in the opposing half, and because the Dortmund defense chief couldn’t get to the ball, a lot of space opened up behind him for Antoine Griezmann of all people. The Frenchman set up Alvaro Morata perfectly, but his colleague took too long to get the pass under control. With a risky tackle, BVB defender Ian Maatsen was able to prevent the early total loss.
Perhaps BVB coach Edin Terzic would have asked himself at that moment whether everyone had listened carefully during the tactics meeting – shortly afterwards he would have known that this could not have been the case. Because you can’t allow yourself to make such a big mistake in the second minute in a quarter-final of the Champions League – but the next one didn’t take long to arrive and it went straight to 0-1.
Constant pressure for Dortmund
In modern football, goalkeepers are the very first openers, and the days when they would push the ball far forward when in doubt are long gone. It would still be better sometimes. When BVB goalkeeper Gregor Kobel played a risky short pass to Maatsen, it became clear that Atlético had been waiting for exactly this. The Dutchman tried to pass the ball with the outside of his foot under pressure from his opponent, which would certainly have looked nice if it had worked. But it didn’t: Rodrigo de Paul smelled the roast, grabbed the ball and beat Kobel.
As a result, one could become fearful and worried about BVB, who always quickly lost the ball under the constant pressure from the Spaniards. But somehow Borussia survived this phase without suffering any further damage. The first very timid offensive efforts of our own even led to Dortmund’s first corner after half an hour. BVB seemed to be able to swim a little free – and took a bath when the Spaniards next counterattacked.
Atlético Madrid had a lot of fun, especially in the early stages.
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Image: AFP
Mats Hummels and Nico Schlotterbeck, who had impressed Atlético coach Diego Simeone in the 2-0 win in the Bundesliga at Bayern Munich, hindered each other in a seemingly harmless attack – the beneficiary was Griezmann, who skillfully passed the ball to Samuel Lino forwarded. The only question that remained open was which of the two BVB mistakes in the first half was the worse.
During the break, Terzic corrected his positioning. Felix Nmecha had to make way for the more attacking Julian Brandt. Borussia began to fight back, on and off the pitch, where Simeone and BVB sporting director Sebastian Kehl had a very energetic exchange of views. Another central striker, Haller, came in for Niclas Füllkrug, but this didn’t change the fundamental problem. Not only can Atlético attack surprisingly well, as they did in the first half, the Spaniards are known to be able to defend well and organized.
The 2-0 win therefore seemed to be a sufficient lead for Madrid for the second leg, even if Atlético has revealed astonishing weaknesses away from home in the Spanish league this season. Simeone apparently no longer wanted to see any major attacking efforts, but he could have been almost happy about the next goal in the 75th minute.
A free kick from Griezmann from the sideline flew past everyone in the penalty area and found its way to Lino, but was denied by Kobel’s quick reaction. Just a few seconds later, Kobel and Hummels once again performed a similar feat to the one before the 0-2, but this time they were lucky that Griezmann did not take advantage of the situation.
In the first half, Dortmund were next to themselves.
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Image: AP
Suddenly, however, the starting position for the second leg changed, perhaps decisively. A pass from Brandt ended up in a detour to Haller, who scored from the turn to make it 1:2 (81st). Hummels almost made a mistake against Correa in return, which could have immediately restored the old goal gap, but the BVB goal still had an impact.
Atlético looked anything but confident in the final phase, having luck with a shot from substitute Bynoe-Gitten (87′) and a header from Brandt onto the crossbar (90+5). BVB doesn’t have a chance in the second leg – and it didn’t look like that for a long time. “You can get lost here in the first half. But we showed morale, we were there in the second half,” said BVB captain Emre Can on DAZN: “If we play in the second leg like we did in the second half today, then that can definitely be something very important next week Becoming good.”
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