Darmstadt vs. Borussia Dortmund: Winners and Losers from Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund beat SV Darmstadt 2-0 on Matchday 24 of the 2015/16 Bundesliga season on Wednesday. Thanks to their win and Bayern Munich's surprising home loss to FSV Mainz, BVB closed the gap to the league leaders to five points ahead of Saturday's clash with the Bavarian giants.
Head coach Thomas Tuchel made no fewer than eight changes to his team that came from behind to beat 1899 Hoffenheim at the weekend, with only Neven Subotic, Julian Weigl and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang keeping their spots in the starting XI.
The hosts, meanwhile, made only one change, as former Dortmund man Mario Vrancic replaced Jan Rosenthal in midfield.
The game developed exactly as expected: The visitors had all the possession but struggled to create much against the very defensive Lilies, who usually kept six men in defence.
It took Dortmund 38 minutes to break the hosts down. Adrian Ramos tapped in after Aubameyang saw the impressive Christian Mathenia keep his short-range header out.
Ilkay Gundogan had the golden opportunity to double his team's lead before the half-time break but failed to beat the 23-year-old.
The Black and Yellows looked better coming out of intermission and scored the decisive goal eight minutes into the second half, with left-back Erik Durm the somewhat unlikely scorer.
The game more or less fizzled out the rest of the way, although both teams had a number of scoring chances. Referee Manuel Grafe denied Darmstadt their biggest chance when he didn't blow his whistle after Mats Hummels fouled Vrancic right around the one-hour mark, presumably because the Bosnian got his shot off before Dortmund's captain hit him.
The visitors were deserved winners and will be happy they didn't have to give too big an effort with both the meeting with Bayern and the UEFA Europa League round-of-16 tie with Tottenham Hotspur looming large.
Darmstadt, on the other hand, knew all along they'd need to win their points elsewhere but have to start doing so soon, seeing as both Werder Bremen and Hoffenheim won their games on Wednesday. They're only four points ahead of the first direct relegation spot now.
Here, B/R picks the winners and losers from the game.
Winner: Adrian Ramos
1 of 5
Colombia international Adrian Ramos makes this list for the second Dortmund game running. The 30-year-old got a rare opportunity to start—only his second start of the season in the Bundesliga—and paid back Tuchel's trust not only with the vital opening goal, but also an exemplary performance.
He and his team-mates didn't come close to reaching the footballing heights they've set in other games this season, but Ramos was industrious, didn't shy away from any challenge Darmstadt presented him with and rewarded himself with the goal.
With his 38th-minute strike, he's now been involved "in 6 goals in this BL-season (4 goals, 2 assists) in only 245 minutes on the pitch," as stat provider Opta tweeted during the game.
Loser: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
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While one of Dortmund's strikers was a winner, the other, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, belongs on the other end of the spectrum.
It was a rotten day for the Gabonese, who missed at least four clear-cut goalscoring opportunities. He was lucky his first led to Ramos' goal, but other than that, there was no end product.
Aubameyang's profligacy could've hurt his team against any other side, and it continued a worrying trend: He's scored just two league goals away from home since the October international break.
His side keep winning games and Tuchel is correct in saying, as he did in the press conference after the game, per local paper Ruhr Nachrichten on Twitter (link in German), that they couldn't have gotten much more out of the game considering the circumstances—the terrible pitch conditions, for example—but Aubameyang's performance didn't have a lot to do with the three points.
Winner: Gonzalo Castro
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Gonzalo Castro was firmly entrenched in Tuchel's doghouse in recent weeks, seeing as he didn't play in any of Dortmund's last four matches across competitions before Wednesday, so the fact that he got to play the full 90 minutes alone has to be considered a positive sign.
That the 28-year-old played really well and produced the highlight of the game with a fantastic assist for Durm's goal when his through ball cut through Darmstadt's concentrated defence like a hot knife through butter.
Castro needed a strong showing, especially considering the fact that Tuchel selected the freshest players for the physical battle with the Lilies, as he told German broadcaster Sky before the game, and Dortmund's No. 27 delivered just that.
Loser: Sandro Wagner
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Dortmund don't allow a lot of clear-cut goalscoring opportunities these days—they kept their seventh clean sheet in 10 competitive games in 2016 on Wednesday—so whenever an in-form striker such as Sandro Wagner gets one of them, he ought to make it count.
The 28-year-old, who had scored in three straight and five in six games since the turn of the year prior to the meeting with Dortmund, had the big chance to put his side in front two minutes before Ramos scored for Dortmund.
To be fair, his shot was just wide of the goal from a difficult angle, but a bit of awareness would've allowed him to square the ball for Konstantin Rausch, who was all by himself in the middle.
There's no telling how differently the game would've gone had Wagner kept his scoring streak alive, of course, but he'll be kicking himself regardless.
Winner: Thomas Tuchel
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Sometimes, head coaches do get it all. Wednesday was one such occasion for Thomas Tuchel.
Not only did his team win a fairly unpleasant game on the road quite comfortably, but they also did it while resting a number of key players.
From the eight changes to his side, only one was forced, as goalkeeper Roman Burki had fallen ill.
Everyone else got some well-deserved rest in a busy part of the schedule for Dortmund, who played their fourth midweek fixture in a row. Marco Reus, for example, didn't even make the trip and should be fresh for the huge tasks in front of BVB.
The 42-year-old was obviously chuffed after the game, noting that it's a great feeling to be able to rely on his squad, per Ruhr Nachrichten (link in German).
If all that wasn't enough, Tuchel also got a nice assist from his former club, as Mainz unexpectedly beat Bayern in Allianz-Arena.
That sets Dortmund up with a huge opportunity to make it a true race for the Bundesliga title after all with a win on Saturday evening, and Tuchel must feel pretty good about his side's chances after their results of the recent weeks: The Black and Yellows have now won seven straight.
Lars Pollmann is a Featured Columnist writing on Borussia Dortmund. He also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
