Roman Burki Comes Up Big as Borussia Dortmund Advance to Europa League Last 16

Borussia Dortmund advanced to the last 16 of the UEFA Europa League on Thursday, beating FC Porto 1-0 in the return leg of their round-of-32 clash at the Estadio do Dragao.

Make no mistake about it, the Black and Yellows thoroughly deserved to go through to the next round; they were the far better team in the big picture.

Porto's negative attitude in the first leg cost them, and in their home game, they didn't even play their best team. No fewer than four key contributors (Hector Herrera, Yacine Brahimi, Andre Andre and Jesus Corona) watched the kick-off from the bench.

Still, Dortmund weren't overjoyed after the final whistle. On the contrary, head coach Thomas Tuchel looked quite disappointed with his team. "For long periods today we played like an orchestra not in unison and with no rhythm," the 42-year-old said in his press conference, per the club's official website.

Before that, he had told German broadcaster Sky he wasn't happy at all with the performance, adding that his team should've done much more with their superiority. Tuchel looked dissatisfied during the game as well, as the following video, tweeted by Matthias Marburg of German tabloid Bild, shows:

Dortmund did only what was necessary, especially in the second half. Michael Caley's expected-goals chart below indicates that:

"

xG map for Porto-BVB. Looks like a "doing what you need to do to win" performance from Dortmund. pic.twitter.com/EMf3pIOKGp

— Michael Caley (@MC_of_A) February 25, 2016"

Once they scored their goal in the 23rd minute, the tie was more or less over. It's hard to fault a team for taking it relatively easy in that situation considering the many midweek fixtures they have to play in a row these days.

That being said, the Black and Yellows definitely rode their luck on the way to beating Porto.

The only goal of the evening came with two Dortmund players, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Shinji Kagawa, in clear offside positions. The Gabonese failed to tap in a rebound from a magnificent Iker Casillas save from two yards out, but the Spanish legend was so unlucky that the ball ricocheted off his knee into the goal.

It was a strong team move on the counter-attack, but Dortmund still needed help—twice—to get the ball over the line.

Carlos Rodrigues/Getty Images

In the second half, substitute Nuri Sahin could've easily been sent off for a kick to Danilo Pereira's midsection. The Turkey international was unaware of his surroundings, which is probably a remnant of his lack of match practice.

Three minutes from time, Porto substitute Yacine Brahimi fired a shot onto the crossbar.

That Dortmund kept a clean sheet, their fifth on the spin and sixth in eight games in 2016, was not only down to luck, however. Roman Burki had a lot to do with it, too.

The Switzerland international played perhaps his best game for Dortmund yet, although he only had to make two or three saves. His biggest parry was without question one of his most impressive saves for the Black and Yellows to date.

Silvestre Varela got his head to a cross flying in from the right-hand side of the box. It was going in, but Burki made an incredible leap, tipping the ball away with his fingertips at full stretch. The video below shows the 25-year-old's great work:

Burki made two more saves en route to a man-of-the-match performance. Local paper Ruhr Nachrichten rated him as the best Dortmund player on the evening, with a grade that translates to eight out of 10.

His strong performance could turn into a dilemma for Tuchel in the next round of the Europa League. Burki only played because Roman Weidenfeller wasn't quite ready after falling ill the previous week. The 35-year-old is Dortmund's first-choice 'keeper for the Europa League.

With Burki upping his game considerably in the second half of the season so far, however, there aren't many reasons why he shouldn't play in Europe as well. Tuchel made clear the Europa League is a higher priority than the Bundesliga when he played a number of back-ups on Sunday against Bayer Leverkusen. 

It'll be difficult to explain why that logic doesn't apply to the position in goal. The way Burki's been playing, on Thursday evening and for the weeks beforehand, he'd give Dortmund the best chance for success in Europe.

Lars Pollmann is a Featured Columnist writing on Borussia Dortmund. He also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.