Borussia Dortmund Show Encouraging Signs in Supercup Defeat to Bayern Munich

At first blush, the DFL-Supercup was just another final in which Borussia Dortmund failed to beat the superior Bayern Munich, the Bavarians winning with an almost comfortable scoreline of 2-0 thanks to second-half goals from Arturo Vidal and Thomas Muller.

In reality, however, the Black and Yellows were the better side for 60 minutes and had only the imperious Manuel Neuer and their own finishing, still stuck in pre-season mode, to blame for their lack of goals in the game.

It felt like a vintage Dortmund performance against their rivals from southern Germany, with head coach Thomas Tuchel fielding an XI that lacked a bit of natural strategic ability in the middle of the park but saw physically strong midfielders paired with lightning-fast attackers in Adrian Ramos, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ousmane Dembele.

As former head coach Jurgen Klopp once famously argued, counter-pressing is the "best playmaker in the world," per Rene Maric of Spielverlagerung.com, and with Dortmund having lost midfield mastermind Ilkay Gundogan to Manchester City in the summer, engaging Bayern in a somewhat chaotic battle was indeed the best way to create chances.

Whenever Dortmund won the ball, they tried to immediately release one of their attackers, with all three playing on the shoulders of Bayern's centre-back duo, Javi Martinez and Mats Hummels. The two defenders struggled with Aubameyang and Dembele's pace, allowing countless runs into the channels behind them.

Newly signed centre-back Marc Bartra played two of the game's best passes into the space behind the central defenders, highlighting a strong competitive debut for the former Barcelona man.

ESPN FC's Stephan Uersfeld argued that the 25-year-old "made the best impression" of all the new signings: "Within only a few minutes in the first half, the 25-year-old showed with a few smart passes between the Bayern lines that, at least going forward, he can be the replacement for Hummels that Dortmund had been hoping for."

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Midfielder Sebastian Rode also impressed in his debut for Dortmund, which came as no surprise, seeing as this type of game perfectly suits his qualities. The 25-year-old, having arrived from Bayern in the summer, brings the required tenacity and dynamism for high-intensity matches and time and time again won important tackles in the middle of the park.

As in most of the pre-season games, Rode was the deepest midfielder, with Nuri Sahin not in the squad and Julian Weigl, like the rest of the late arrivals following an extended vacation after Euro 2016, not selected in the starting XI.

Rode's work rate was exemplary for a Dortmund side that should have rewarded itself at least once in the opening 45 minutes, but there was the small matter of overcoming the best goalkeeper in the world. Neuer, called into action much more often than anyone would have anticipated, made every save look effortless, denying Dembele and Ramos from close range and taking care of any attempts from distance.

Of course, the Black and Yellows were once again denied by the referee as well.

In a recurring theme of big matches against Bayern—even though the Supercup doesn't count as one—Franck Ribery who should've been sent off in the first half. The Frenchman hit the trifecta after elbowing Robert Lewandowski in the 2013 UEFA Champions League final and poking Gonzalo Castro in the eye in the DFB-Pokal final in May.

This time, it was arguably the most blatant offence, as the 33-year-old more or less punched Felix Passlack in the face, as the video below shows:

"

This is the coming together which saw both Ribéry AND Passlack booked (@amadoit__) pic.twitter.com/CM6wNqWIdT

— Onefootball (@Onefootball) August 14, 2016"

Oddly, Ribery was only booked—as was his 18-year-old victim for a tug of the shirt. The Frenchman was consequently booed with even more vigor than former team captain Hummels after his move back to boyhood club Bayern in the summer.

Passlack told his club's official website after the game that "you would have been red carded for that [incident] in the Bundesliga."

Much to his credit, though, Dortmund's youngster wasn't fazed by the incident, as he put in a mightily impressive performance in Lukasz Piszczek's place in defence.

ESPN FC's Stefan Buczko rated him at eight out of 10, noting that Passlack "turned in a very mature performance in the right-back position" and that he" reaffirmed his strong showings from the friendlies and is destined for more minutes with BVB's senior team."

Much like the rest of the team, however, Passlack was much stronger in the first 60 minutes—or rather, the first 58 minutes—than he was in the final half-hour.

After failing to make their surprising dominance count on the scoreboard, the Black and Yellows were always at the risk of Bayern finally waking up offensively. Sure enough, the Bavarians scored from their second real chance of the game.

Ribery for once found a bit of space against Passlack and played a long pass toward Lewandowski, who in turn found Vidal in the penalty box. Goalkeeper Roman Burki kept out the Chilean's first attempt with a good reaction stop but spilled the ball back to the Bayern man, who slotted home with ease. 

"The game changed thereafter as Dortmund ran out of steam and failed to create dangerous situations in the final third," as Uersfeld put it. "Bayern, on the other hand, slowly found their groove and took control."

The Ruhr side almost looked stunned by going behind, failing to trouble Neuer even once in the final 30-odd minutes. Bayern easily controlled the game with clever passing sequences and added a second goal following a corner, with Hummels, of all players, setting up a typical Muller goal; the 26-year-old, as so often, found himself in the perfect position to score with one simple touch.

Tuchel tried to bring back some of the directness his side lost in the second half with the introduction of Andre Schurrle on the wing, but the club-record signing looked like a foreign element in the team after only training with his new team-mates for about 10 days. Emre Mor was equally ineffective when he replaced Aubameyang at the top of the formation.

His entering the pitch, of course, meant Mario Gotze has to wait for his second debut with the Black and Yellows, as Weigl had already come on together with Schurrle. Dortmund sorely lacked a creative spark in the dying moments of the game, as they never challenged a Bayern defence that had proved so susceptible in the first half.

PATRIK STOLLARZ/Getty Images

All in all, however, it was a fairly encouraging performance from a BVB side that has been up and down throughout pre-season. Tuchel's decision to start 11 players who had been in team training for a while paid off to an extent with a sometimes dominant display against Bayern, who ultimately were more clinical when it mattered.

Given the rather insignificant meaning of the Supercup, which is a glorified friendly, performance trumps results, so fans of the Black and Yellows can take many positives from the game despite it ending with them losing yet another trophy to their rivals.

Lars Pollmann also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.