The luck in this scene was quickly forgotten for Dortmund. Mo Dahoud sustained a shoulder injury after 30 minutes in what seemed a clumsy foul attempt on VfB player Wataru Endo – which ended the game for him too.
Hummels already the third injured
And that wasn’t it in the first half. Shortly before the half-time whistle, Mats Hummels grabbed his thigh and had to be replaced by Dan-Axel Zagadou when the game started again – Dortmund’s third loss of the evening.
The game logically suffered from all these changes, but Stuttgart made extremely little of it. At times in the second half, VfB looked as if they wanted to defend the narrow deficit, and Marmoush’s repeated fall attempts, which annoyed Enmre Can in particular, revealed a little desperation.
Brandt with the preliminary decision
The collective passivity of the hosts continued after 70 minutes in the defense, which had been mostly stable up to that point. Brandt was not attacked during a counterattack, apparently the Stuttgart team expected a pass to Haaland. Brandt then used this to make a powerful shot from 22 meters, which Müller let pass into the right corner – the preliminary decision was made with the 2-0.
Ten minutes before the end it almost got exciting again. First Kobel saves with an amazing save against Borna Sosa’s flick, then Mavronpanos tries to head the free-standing shot from close range next to the goal after the subsequent corner. Shortly thereafter, Roberto Massimo also had the connection on his head from five meters – but he too negligently missed the huge opportunity.
Bad luck for Sosa
It became clear shortly before the end after another outstanding action by Sosa that it was somehow not to be for VfB that evening: His artistic degree went beyond Kobel, but landed on the crossbar. Haaland then scored in injury time – passer Bellingham was minimally offside.