Coming straight from the Bundesliga, Borussia Dortmund managed to walk away with a fighting 1-0 victory over Werder Bremen at Signal Iduna Park on Friday courtesy of a second-half goal by Julian Brandt. The victory helped Dortmund to leapfrog to the top spot in the Bundesliga rankings ahead of Bayer Leverkusen and Stuttgart.
Dortmund had a strong start to the match creating an opportunity to get the opening goal in the early minutes of the match when Donyell Malen had a shot saved by Zetterer in the opening minutes. This set the tone for the match and Dortmund were oozing with confidence. Just around the half-hour mark, Marco Reus also came freaking close to getting the opening goal for the hosts, but his attempt narrowly missed the target.
The winning goal for Dortmund was scored by Brandt in the 67th minute, who dashed into the penalty area and gathered a precise pass from Emre Can, before gracefully chipping the ball over Werder’s goalkeeper, Michael Zetterer. The goal gave the hosts a well-deserved lead at a very crucial juncture of the match.
The match was filled with some very physical gameplay. The Bremen Boys went quite rough on the hosts, getting 5 yellow cards from the ref for Leonardo Bittencourt, Olivier Deman, Marvin Ducksch, Milos Veljkovic, and Jens Stage. Though the match seemed evenly matched at some points, with both teams displaying some great defensive work, Dortmund enjoyed about 57% ball possession and took 10 corners, while Bremen could take only 4.
In the end, the victory ensured that Dortmund maintained their unbeaten start to the Bundesliga season. This was also Dortmund’s fifth straight victory of the season, following which, they are now seated at the top of the Bundesliga standings with 20 points from 8 games, followed by Bayer Leverkusen and Stuttgart with 19 and 18 points respectively, and Bayern Munich and Hoffenheim follow closely to complete the top 5.
Werder Bremen on the other hand have a lot of hard work to do as they only have 2 wins from 8 games, having lost three back-to-back games now and have dropped to the 14th spot with just 6 points in their kitty!
Elsewhere, an injury-time goal from Florian Sotoca helped Lens secure a late victory at Le Havre in Ligue 1 and move into the top half of the table. Two goals from Ante Budimir helped Osasuna defeat Granada 2-0 in La Liga.
