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Erling Haaland: 18th goal in the 13th Champions League appearance
Photo: Daniel Gonzalez Acuna / dpa
The decision maker:
It’s not running at BVB right now, and then also this start!
After six minutes, Dortmund was behind in Seville, with a team that had not conceded a goal in weeks.
Is that about Borussia and the Champions League?
It wasn't.
Because she has Erling Haaland in the storm.
The 20-year-old prepared the equalizer in a splendid way, then he scored a brilliant goal and later decided the game with his second goal.
Haaland has now scored 41 goals in 42 appearances for Dortmund.
He scored 18 goals in 13 Champions League games.
Values that are simply phenomenal.
The result:
Borussia Dortmund won the round of 16 first leg at FC Sevilla 3: 2 (3: 1).
The quarter-finals of the Champions League are close.
Read the game report here.
The second leg in Dortmund will take place on March 9th.
The first half:
Started with the equation throw-in = a goal.
First it was a throw-in for the hosts on the left, followed by a shift to the right to Suso, who faked a shot and fooled Dortmund's Jadon Sancho with it.
When Suso really shot shortly afterwards, he hit the foot of Mats Hummels, and from there the ball jumped into the goal.
It was a bit bitter from BVB's perspective (7th minute).
Then the Haaland show began:
again after a throw-in, this time for BVB, Haaland refueled in a seemingly hopeless situation against three defenders, then served Mahmoud Dahoud, who caught the ball perfectly from more than 20 meters (19th).
At 2-1, Haaland dropped into midfield and received a pass, which he accepted with his right hand and then drove with his left in a full sprint towards the goal, past Seville's midfielders.
After a one-two with Sancho, he brought BVB into the lead.
The third goal resulted from a conquest of the ball by Marco Reus, then the BVB switched;
Reus used Haaland, who flicked the ball flat into the far corner (43.).
Quote from the game:
"We were more online today," said Haaland after the game at Dazn, pointing to his head.
The second half:
Had a first big moment of shock for Dortmund when Óscar Rodríguez shot a free kick almost ideally over the BVB wall, but only almost.
The ball hit the post, from there jumped to the hand of keeper Marwin Hitz and then flew to the side (74.).
When it seemed that Borussia would survive Seville's attacks unscathed, the goal was scored.
After a free-kick cross, Emre let Can Luuk de Jong out of sight (84th).
Rosy prospects:
On Monday, BVB, which has been in crisis for weeks, announced that it had signed Mönchengladbach's Marco Rose for the coming season.
The team promptly made their best game in weeks.
Can a trainer effect also be used if the new coach is not there yet?
Unlikely.
And actually Edin Terzic's question is wrong.
BVB's current coach, who, according to sports director Michael Zorc, will work as an assistant coach again in the future, had come up with a good plan for the game.
BVB pressed Sevilla almost surprisingly late, and they did so from a running-intensive 4-5-1 order, from which the midfielders had to run long distances to disrupt the opposing build-up.
The team followed Terzic's idea.
And she had Haaland in her ranks.
Crumbling bulwark:
Seville has won nine out of the last nine competitive games and only conceded one goal.
How could this defense of all things collapse like this?
Maybe the answer has to do with the Spanish style.
In La Liga, many teams value technically strong footballers.
There are of course athletics, pressing and counterattacks there too.
But these aspects seem less important than in the Bundesliga or the Premier League.
The way Haaland plowed through Seville's defense was partly reminiscent of the Paris appearance in Barcelona on Tuesday.
It is probably no coincidence that Sevilla only conceded more than two goals twice this season: against BVB and in a 4-0 defeat against Chelsea.
The new stars of football:
On Tuesday, Kylian Mbappé, 22, scored three goals in Camp Nou and thus Lionel Messi and FC Barcelona almost certainly out of the competition.
Now Haaland let the gala follow in Seville, while at the same time Cristiano Ronaldo lost with Juventus in Porto.
Messi and Ronaldo, they have shaped football for more than a decade.
And they are still exceptional, you can see that week after week in their leagues.
But the Champions League is no longer just
your
stage.
Mbappé and Haaland, each more than a decade younger, are moving up and adopting the premier class more and more.
In the past 15 years, someone who was not named Messi or Ronaldo has only been top scorer twice (2015 Neymar, 2020 Robert Lewandowski).
It's pretty sure that will change.
Outlook:
The first quarter-finals since 2017 are very close for Dortmund.
2017, that was the season with the bus attack.
Next up is the Bundesliga, and this construction site is currently the largest for BVB, six points missing in fourth place.
The opponent?
Schalke 04. "A big game," said Haaland at Dazn, Dortmund had to win it.
"I'm looking forward to Saturday's game," he said.
It almost sounded like a threat from his mouth.
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