Goal premiere for Bellingham
© Imago
Borussia Dortmund is as good as in the round of 16 after a tremor in the midday heat of Cincinnati at the club World Cup. Also thanks to the premiere hit by Star newcomer Jobe Bellingham (45th minute), the team of coach Niko Kovac won 4: 3 (3: 1) against the South African serial champion Mamelodi Sundowns from the start.
Felix Nmecha (16th) and Serhou Guirassy (34th) also met against the club from Pretoria. Sundowns defense player Khuliso Mudau (59th) undertook an own goal. Lucas Ribeiro (11th) had made Malmodi in the lead in front of 14:006. IQRAAM Rayners (62nd) and Lebo Mothiba (90th) shortened in the second half for the outsider.
At well over 30 degrees Celsius at 12 noon local time, both teams made an unusually large number of mistakes at a leisurely pace, which BVB used a little better. After four points from two games, Dortmund will again play against Ulsan HD from South Korea in Cincinnati against Ulsan HD at the end of the preliminary round.
Kovac: “Not the best game, but it wasn’t possible”
“We certainly didn’t make the best game today, but that wasn’t possible,” said BVB coach Kovac at “DAZN” with a view to the difficult conditions: “I didn’t do anything, I was only on the outer line and sweat as if I came out of the sauna.” It was “certainly not everything round”, added Kovac, “but I don’t care – we won.”
Kovac reacted to the tired 0: 0 at the start of Rio de Janeiro. Karim Adeyemi, Julian Rerson and Marcel Sabitzer rotated from the team and curiously stayed in the cabin. In view of the violent midday heat, the BVB substitute players did not pursue the game from the player bank, which was positioned in the blazing sun.
“We have to get people in who can also deal with the weather,” Kovac said before the game. However, this only partially worked. The Yan Couto, who came into play for Rerson for around 25 million euros from Manchester United, took his chance inadequate. Again and again the Brazilian made position errors and sloppy bad passes.
In his first game, Bellingham, on the other hand, repeatedly indicated for Dortmund the great reinforcement of the 19 -year -old Englishman. Shortly before the half-time whistle, the Adeyemi replacement also achieved the preliminary decision with its 3-1. The brother of former BVB professional Jude Bellingham came from Sunderland for a good 30 million euros.
And NMECHA, who replaced Sabitzer, brought BVB back into the game after a quarter of an hour. However, he also benefited from an incredible goat by the South African national keeper Ronwen Williams, who had played the ball into the foot without need.
From that moment on, a lot ran in favor of the Westphalia, who themselves were lucky that the team from Pretoria could not really take advantage of the many defense carvers of the Dortmund. After a good half an hour, Guirassy brought BVB into the lead for the first time after the measure of Julian Brandt. In the leadership of the South Africans, Ribeiro used a bad mistake from Waldemar Anton and then sprinted away Ramy Bensebaini, who grown into the void.
After the change, the game was almost decided by Daniel Svensson by the flank deflected by Mudau into its own network. But the two goals in the second half brought tension again.