Mature Borussia Dortmund Turn Up Heat on Bayern Munich with Darmstadt Win

Wednesday's trip to SV Darmstadt would've been a prime spot for Borussia Dortmund to slip up.

Head coach Thomas Tuchel might have sugarcoated the Merck-Stadion am Bollenfalltor as a venue for "pure football" from the old days in his press conference before the game, but in reality, conditions in Darmstadt hardly allow professional players to ply their trade.

Dirk Schuster, head coach of the Lilies, admitted after the game that he had to cancel team training on the pitch at the Bollenfalltor early on Tuesday because he feared for his players' health, per magazine Focus (link in German).

Marco Reus didn't even make the trip for the Black and Yellows, presumably because of his susceptibility to ankle injuries, as his side made no fewer than eight changes to the victorious lineup from the weekend.

With that in mind, Tuchel must have felt pretty good about himself after the final whistle. Not only did he rest a number of key players and still won, but he also got a nice assist from his former club, as FSV Mainz beat Bayern Munich 2-1 at the Allianz Arena.

We imagine Tuchel's immediate reaction looked similar to the one his predecessor Jurgen Klopp blurted out on BBC's Match of the Day:

The 42-year-old tried to focus on praising his team's performance, per the club's official website: "The best thing a Dortmund player can do when he comes to Darmstadt is to deliver a professional performance. Unspectacular, but effective. We did that tonight."

"Unspectacular, but effective" sums up the Black and Yellows' game perfectly. Centre-half Neven Subotic said after the game that "it didn’t feel like a game of football," adding that "balls were just hoofed forward. It was an uncomfortable game, more a wrestling-match within a match."

Dortmund accepted the realities of the game early on and never lost their patience. Allowing just one big goalscoring chance for the hosts until they were 2-0 up, the visitors deserved their victory.

It was a mature performance from everyone involved. The visitors played it safe when they had to, upped the tempo when they could and scored with two of their first four clear-cut chances.

DANIEL ROLAND/Getty Images

No one exemplified that maturity better than Julian Weigl. The 20-year-old was the second-youngest player on the pitch, with 17-year-old academy product Felix Passlack getting his senior debut, but the defensive midfielder didn't look like it. 

Stefan Buczko of ESPN graded him as the best BVB player on the pitch with a rating of nine out of 10, and wrote: "A 90 percent pass completion rate on the dodgiest pitch in the Bundesliga tells the story of Weigl's night. Darmstadt couldn't execute a single counter-attack in this match, and Weigl played a big part in that."

Their win was never in doubt, which doesn't sound like much, especially considering the Lilies' appalling home form—they've won just seven points in 12 matches in front of their own fans this season—but it was as good a performance as fans could've hoped for, all things considered.

Now the focus shifts to the weekend.

The entire country is buzzing already, licking their lips at the prospect of a true title race that seemed so unlikely before kick-off on Wednesday. Mainz's surprising win at the Allianz Arena gives Dortmund a chance to blow the fight for the championship wide open.

Michael Probst/Associated Press

They'll cut the deficit to just two points with a win over the Bavarian giants on Saturday evening.

Per the club's official website, Tuchel tried to downplay the clash with Bayern on Wednesday, saying that the results don't "give Saturday's match a different meaning. We would have awaited the match with the same anticipation."

Still, he admitted that "the ball is now in our court to take the next step." 

Considering the great run of results the Black and Yellows are on—seven successive wins in all competitions—and the maturity with which they've won games in recent weeks, despite the 20 changes Tuchel made in the last three games alone, per Spox.com's Jochen Tittmar on Twitter (link in German), now's as good a time as any to meet Bayern.

You wouldn't put it past the Black and Yellows to be just two points behind the league leaders on Sunday morning.

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