Borussia Dortmund's Come-from-Behind Win Shows Ilkay Gundogan Is Irreplaceable

At the end of the day, Borussia Dortmund's 3-1 win over 1899 Hoffenheim looks like a fairly standard affair. People who didn't see the game won't know what a bumpy ride it was for the Black and Yellows.

Truth be told, it was the third straight league home match in which they were poor. It's certainly a quality that they keep winning these games, and they show Dortmund have too much individual quality for almost all competition in the Bundesliga.

Sunday's come-from-behind win over Hoffenheim proved exactly that.

The visitors were all over Dortmund for large parts of the match, especially the first half. It's hard to believe this Hoffenheim side is second-to-last in the league standings. They were aggressive, had a good plan and executed it to perfection; playing without a striker and using a high line, they squeezed Dortmund into a small corridor in midfield, as this graphic from FourFourTwo's Stats Zone app shows:

Dortmund head coach Thomas Tuchel said after the game, per the club's official website: "Hoffenheim are playing a lot better than they were four weeks ago, and their position...in the table is not an accurate reflection of the team’s abilities."

Some of the hosts' problems were homemade, of course. The double pivot of Nuri Sahin and Julian Weigl played too deep, trying to help the centre-backs out in buildup play with Mats Hummels missing the game through injury. Weigl is still a valuable player thanks to his intelligent positioning and assured passing, but with Sahin back in action, the 20-year-old needs to do more than pass the ball laterally.

Dortmund could also have done with a much better performance from Shinji Kagawa, but those have been hard to come by in recent weeks; the Japan international once again looked out of sync with his team-mates. ESPN FC's Stefan Buczko, who rated him at 4/10, wrote: "Kagawa was the player who slipped up the most. The Japanese takes too long to handle the ball, losing a lot of momentum. Unsurprisingly he was replaced at halftime."

PATRIK STOLLARZ/Getty Images

With the 26-year-old not in good form, Dortmund were lacking a link between defence and the two deep-lying midfielders and attack, lining up in an undesirable 5-0-5 shape too often. That was also the case for Hoffenheim's goal, which saw no one track Sebastian Rudy's charging run right down the middle of the park.

The introduction of Ilkay Gundogan for Kagawa at intermission worked wonders for Dortmund. The Germany international gave an inspiring signal three minutes into the second half, dribbling past four defenders in one fluid motion before firing off a shot that hit the woodwork.

His side were, of course, aided by the red card for goalscorer Rudy in the 58th minute. A man down, Hoffenheim withdrew their high line, concentrating seven or eight players behind the ball at all times. They were under siege, with Dortmund throwing everything at them, as Deutsche Welle's Ross Dunbar alluded to:

It still looked like one of these days fans of the Black and Yellows haven't had to endure this season, when the opposing goalkeeper, Oliver Baumann in this case, seems to magically attract every shot.

That is until the 80th minute.

Dortmund finally broke the deadlock, and their—arguably—two best performers of the season were instrumental: A short-corner routine reached Gundogan, who released Mkhitaryan with a one-touch through ball. The Armenian smartly dispatched the ball into the far corner and all hell broke loose in the Westfalenstadion. Find the goal around the two-minute mark in this video.

Five minutes after the equaliser, Gundogan threaded the needle with a clever ball over the top of Hoffenheim's defence. Lukasz Piszczek just got to the pass and played an incredible cross into the middle, where substitute striker Adrian Ramos outjumped his marker and headed home.

Boris Streubel/Getty Images

No one needed any proof, but Gundogan still provided it: He is simply irreplaceable for Dortmund. His introduction—and the sending off—tilted the game in his team's favour.

He was, as Buczko put it, "the key man for Dortmund to turn the screws on Hoffenheim." The video below shows his strong performance in the second half:

Dortmund's No. 8 said after the game, per the club's official website: "The coach can be very, very satisfied with the current personnel situation at the club. We can really rely on whomever is brought off the bench."

That might be true, as the winner from Ramos showed, but no one can take Gundogan's spot.

Dortmund fans have to hope the first half wasn't a sign of things to come should the Germany international choose not to extend his contract at the Westfalenstadion.

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