Borussia Dortmund eased past to victory in their Bundesliga encounter against Borussia Monchengladbach. The visitors took a surprising early lead when Raffael found a hole in BVB defence, but moments later, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang found the equaliser. Then some calamitous defending saw Dortmund getting the lead through Lukasz Piszczek and Ousmane Dembele extending Dortmund’s lead with a stunning strike. Aubameyang completed the rout, when he easily put the ball in the back of the net, from a clever backheel from Marco Reus.
Team News
Borussia Dortmund started with a 5-2-3 formation. Julian Weigl, Mario Gotze and Andre Schurrle found themselves on the bench, presumably to start in the big midweek fixture against Real Madrid. Nuri Sahin deputised Julian Weigl in the middle, partnering alongside Gonzalo Castro in the double pivot midfield. Marco Reus, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ousmane Dembele were the three frontline attacker for Dortmund on the night.
Gladbach on the other hand, opted for a five-man defence as well, with Nico Elvedi, Tobias Strobl and Andreas Christensen in the heart of defence. Mahmoud Dahoud and Christoph Kramer started in midfield and Oscar Wendt and Korb operating as wing backs. Stindl, Raffael and Thorgan Hazard comprised the Gladbach attack.
The match was quite lively right from the start. Borussia Dortmund were trying the breach the gaps early on. Nuri Sahin and Gonzalo Castro complimented each other well for the first quarter of the game. Reus and Dembele moved slightly infield while Marcel Schmelzer and Lukasz Piszczek positioned themselves quite higher up the field. This made it look like a 3-2-4-1 formation.
The early goal from Raffael was due to some awful defending from Borussia Dortmund. An unconvincing clearance from Marc Bartra fell to the Brazilian forward, his shot was rather watched by Sokratis and he just chose to get out of the way and ageing Weidenfeller couldn’t dive in time to stop the ball from going in. However, Dortmund got back into the game very quickly and the culprit of that – was Gladbach themselves. The super slow midfielder Christoph Kramer and the entire defence didn’t manage to deal with Dembele and Reus’ movements around the offensive areas. Gonzalo Castro found it really easy to breach Gladbach’s half space due to the lack of speed from Christoph Kramer.
Secondly – we have to give Thomas Tuchel the credit for his brilliant tactical homework against Gladbach. The higher positioning of the two wingbacks to be exact. Andre Schubert’s man-marking pressing influence got lessened due to the fullbacks, who played almost as wingers. Regardless of their influence in the Dortmund gameplay, they still had to be marked by two Gladbach players, meaning more chances of finding spaces in the middle.
Here’s one example of the entire thing. Marcel Schmelzer provides width from the far side and wingback Julian Korb gets forced to mark the 28-year-old. Which leaves space between the lines of defence and midfield with Aubameyang holding off the two centre backs, Reus makes use of the hole created in the Gladbach defence.
It was the summary of the whole 90 mins, as Gladbach’s lack of pace and audacity left them dawdling around their own half and Dortmund, known for their goal scoring feats, once again blow past Andre Schubert’s side. The win sees Dortmund climb to the fifth spot while Gladbach are lavishing at the wrong end of the table with 13 points in 13 games.
