Borussia Dortmund Huff and Puff in Champions League with Nuri Sahin Return

Borussia Dortmund completed their task of finishing top of Group D on Tuesday night with a hard-fought 1-1 draw with Anderlecht in the Champions League. 

With Arsenal hot on their trail following an uncharacteristic downfall against the London side in the previous match day, Jurgen Klopp’s team took to the Westfalenstadion field with the intention of making sure it finished top of the group and picked up a seeded spot for the next round.

Yet in what should have been an easy encounter against a weaker side in a match that meant very little to the travelling team, Dortmund found an opponent of equal quality and strength in Anderlecht. As a result, they duly struggled to dominate the match from start to finish. 

Klopp’s side was best characterised by the returning form of Nuri Sahin, one of Dortmund’s most cherished sons of late, and a player who made his first appearance for the Black and Yellows this season.

Alongside Ilkay Gundogan, the German-born midfielder looked as slick as ever, yet he struggled to offer the necessary defensive cover that was expected of him and his partner in the centre of the park.

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

While Sven Bender and Sebastian Kehl had muscled their way through the campaign to date, Sahin offered a more indirect style of domination that, in turn, allowed the Belgian side to break and almost score on a number of occasions. 

Sahin’s struggles came to a head late in the first half when the midfielder almost gave away a penalty with a clumsy challenge on Sacha Kljestan in the Dortmund box. The referee didn’t see it and therefore didn’t call it, but it summed up just how fragile the returning star was in his defensive duties. 

But things seemed to change in the second half. Klopp’s side started the following 45 minutes with all the impetus and incentive that usually accompanies its games, yet the defensive frailties of Sahin (and therefore his side) seemed simply to evaporate. 

The Bundesliga team simply took to the age-old trick of ensuring that its offence was the best form of defence, with a number of players putting the Anderlecht back line under immense pressure with play after play. 

This was a ploy which, in turn, brought out the best in Sahin, as he quickly took to his favoured role at Dortmund: that of a playmaker. This amounted to Dortmund’s only goal of the game, which came from a charge through the middle of the park from the Turkish international. 

Awaiting the lunging efforts of the retreating Anderlecht back line, Sahin slipped a perfectly waited pass through to Ciro Immobile in the 57th minute. Immobile then duly obliged his teammate by cutting inside and tucking the ball into the back of Silvio Proto’s goal. 

The Italian striker finally had his goal, and Dortmund had eventually pulled clear of the evening’s unexpected test. 

Yet in a fashion only befitting of Klopp’s side this season, the opponents mustered up their remaining courage and once more took to the task of destabilising this German side. And, as we’ve seen so often in the past few months, it worked like a charm. 

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

Through the blistering pace of Frank Acheampong on the left, Ibrahima Conte on the right and the addition of Youri Tielemans through the middle, Anderlecht posed testing questions of Dortmund’s side late on in the match and ultimately found a way through the lacklustre defence. 

The Belgian side grabbed the goal it had deserved all night through Aleksandar Mitrovic’s header in the 84th minute. By then, Klopp had reshuffled his back line and moved Kevin Grosskreutz to right-back. However, he is a midfielder by trade, which became all too evident from his attempts to put off the towering striker for the equalising goal. 

Like Sahin, Dortmund had looked as threatening as ever in attack with the technique and skill of old that had moved mountains in the Bundesliga and Champions League not so long ago. Yet when asked to track, Klopp’s team huffed and puffed and ultimately fell short of expectation. 

@SBienkowski