Thomas Tuchel's New-Look Borussia Dortmund Stumble in Opening Europa League Test

As the old saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day. In many ways, nobody expected Thomas Tuchel's first competitive game in charge of Borussia Dortmund to go too smoothly or offer a completely different brand of football from his predecessor. 

On Thursday evening, the new manager took his new-look side to Austria, where they faced off with Wolfsberger AC in their opening tie of the Europa League qualifiers. Despite what initially may seem like a tidy 1-0 win on away soil, Dortmund at times still looked like the troubled side from yesteryear. 

Although the German Bundesliga side now stand in an unquestionably good position in the tie with a solitary away goal on which to rely, Tuchel's team looked far from the side that have astounded in preseason. This wasn't the side who bamboozled Juventus just a one week ago or indeed the team that stormed through Asia on its summer tour. 

Of course, nobody expected Dortmund to thrive as they had done in such meaningless games, yet neither did anyone expect to see the former German champions struggle at times against a team that should have been dead and buried by half time. 

When Henrikh Mkhitaryan burst through Wolfsberger's offside trap in the 15th minute to walk in on goal and simply play through Jonas Hofmann for the opening goal, many expected Dortmund to push on and grab another two or three goals in quick succession. This looked like it was going to be a cricket score, yet nothing of the sort came to pass.

In the opening 45 minutes, it was a game of back and forth in which Dortmund dominated proceedings through attacking football. The forward line of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Marco Reus and the aforementioned pairing on either wing worked well and linked up with Ilkay Gundogan in the centre of the pitch with little bother.

Yet rather than the goal, Tuchel will have spent the journey back to Germany agonising over the chances missed rather than the the move Dortmund used to put the ball in the back of the net. 

As fans had grown accustomed to under Jurgen Klopp, Mkhitaryan continued to miss chance after chance, while even the more distinguished talents such as Aubameyang and Reus also struggled to put the ball past Alexander Kofler in goal. 

Tuchel's team were walking through the hosts again and again, but his forwards didn't look sharp enough to kill off the game. 

Unfortunately for Dortmund, this was indeed a game of two halves—another befitting old saying—and their inability to kill off the game almost ended up costing them the entire match when Dietmar Kuhbauer's side came out after the break and threw wave after wave of attack against their German opponents. 

Etsuo Hara/Getty Images

Rather than Reus or Mkhitaryan running through defenders and causing bother for their markers, it was Carlos Silvio and Thomas Zundel of the home side wreaking havoc across the pitch. Twice Dortmund had to clear the ball off their line in the second half—the first a header from Mkhitaryan, the second an acrobatic save from Roman Burki—which could have so easily turned this tie on its head. 

The side's inability to kill off the game in the first half had in turn sparked life in the home team and put a great deal of pressure on a back line that clearly hadn't changed that much since Klopp departed in June. 

While Reus and Co. may have at times looked like a breath of fresh air, Mats Hummels and Sokratis Papastathopoulos still looked nervous on the ball and intent on hoofing every interception to row Z. Tuchel may have demanded short passes on the ground since his first day at the job, but for these seasoned professionals, old habits die hard.

The truth of the matter is despite Tuchel's best efforts over the summer months, Dortmund are still very much a work in progress and will need to adapt from one week to the next.

The front line may have moved like nothing we ever saw under Klopp last season, but it still didn't look as sharp as it could have, and at the back Dortmund are still playing hack-and-slash defending with terrible consequences. 

An away goal that will undoubtedly put Dortmund in a good position ahead of the return leg at the Westfalenstadion, but it was hardly a performance to help fans sleep at night just weeks before the return of the new Bundesliga season. 

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