Thanks to a quick goal from their elusive winter recruit Jadon Sancho on Wednesday evening, Borussia Dortmund qualified for the quarter-finals of the Champions League, at the expense of the Dutch PSV Eindhoven.
After a draw in the first leg in the Netherlands, Borussia Dortmund won 2-0, a first goal scored in the 3rd minute by Jadon Sancho and a second by Marco Reus at the very end of the match in added time .
Surprising first in an extremely tough group with Paris SG, AC Milan and Newcastle (the only group from which two teams qualified for the quarter-finals), Borussia Dortmund confirmed its good form in the Champions League.
For the first time since the 2020/21 season, the Ruhr club has climbed into the European top 8. Two seasons ago, he stopped in the group stage and last year, he failed in the round of 16 against Chelsea.
Struggling in the league (fourth with 20 points behind Bayer Leverkusen, undefeated leader of the Bundesliga), Edin Terzic’s men are finding their breath of fresh air this season in the premier competition of European football.
Hanging on the first leg in Eindhoven, they started the return match in the best possible way by opening the score in the 3rd minute of play by the Englishman Jadon Sancho, back since the beginning of January at the yellow and black house, on loan six month by Manchester United, where he arrived in the summer of 2021 and where he had been on the shelf for several months.
The English international (23 caps), served behind by Julian Brandt, deceived PSV Eindhoven goalkeeper Walter Benitez with a low shot to score his second goal since his return to BVB colors (he also delivered two assists since January).
He had to leave his partners at the start of the last quarter of an hour of play, feeling pain in the back of one thigh.
This opening score was the beginning of a first period perfectly controlled by the teammates of Emre Can, forced to play in central defense alongside Mats Hummels, after the last minute withdrawal of Julian Ryerson.
Dortmund may even have regretted only returning to the locker room with a single goal lead on the clock, while the pressure on Benitez’s goals was constant.
Much less on task in the second half, Dortmund let Eindhoven regain a foothold in the match. The first alert on Gregor Kobel’s goal came in the 53rd minute with a strike from Mexican international Hirving Lozano, which crashed into the post of the beaten Dortmund goalkeeper.
Three minutes later, the Swiss goalkeeper repelled Jordan Teze’s attempt, launched by Johan Bakayoko in the BVB area. Rebelote in the 71st minute, with a Belgian still in check against Kobel, with a Dutch threat increasingly present on the Dortmund goal.
Niclas Füllkrug thought he had offered a quiet end to the match for the 81,365 spectators at the Westfalenstadion, but his goal from a free kick taken by Marco Reus was refused for a very fine offside position (right forearm).
It was ultimately Reus in added time who sealed the fate of the match, concluding a Dortmund counter-attack in added time.