Draw against BVB: “He’s not just weakening himself” – trouble for Gladbach’s striker

Borussia Dortmund once again disappointed away from home in a poor prestige duel against Borussia Mönchengladbach. At 1:1 (0:0), BVB remained winless in their sixth away game this season. Dortmund’s lead after a great individual performance by the in-form Jamie Gittens (65th minute) was countered by Kevin Stöger with a penalty goal (71st).

Coach Nuri Sahin’s team also had a lot of luck in the first half when referee Tobias Stieler did not award a penalty for Gladbach after a handball by Serhou Guirassy in his own penalty area. As a result, the Borussia duel ended without a winner for the first time in almost twelve years. Gladbach’s Tomas Cvancara, who had just been substituted, saw yellow-red in stoppage time (90+5).

There were just 111 seconds between his two yellow cards. Just six minutes after his substitution, the striker’s working day was over again. “That’s annoying. He not only weakens himself, but also us as a team,” said goalscorer Stöger, who also classified the yellow cards as “unfortunate”.

Disastrous Dortmund away record

The gap between fifth-placed Dortmund and the Champions League places grew to three points. This is due to the poor away record of the previous season’s Champions League finalist: two points out of a maximum of 18 is the record of a relegation candidate. Gladbach remains in eleventh place in the middle of the table with 18 points from 13 games.

“I don’t think Gladbach had that much – maybe apart from the one bar cracker. We defended it relatively well,” analyzed BVB defender Nico Schlotterbeck, “but that’s Borussia Dortmund. You can’t be happy with a 1-1 draw in Gladbach. That is not our claim.”

At the beginning, BVB seemed willing to improve their disastrous away record and took control early on. The Gladbachers, on the other hand, seemed strangely inhibited in their build-up to the game, played without any overview and also lacked passes or runs deep.

Things got tricky for Dortmund after 15 minutes with Guirassy’s handball, but video referee Tobias Reichel also didn’t classify this as worthy of a penalty. Shortly before, the Gladbachers had been denied a penalty when their former professional Ramy Bensebaini got on the foot of Franck Honorat.

Otherwise, Borussia from the Lower Rhine stood out mainly due to their technical deficiencies and poor passing game, which the Westphalian Borussia were unable to take advantage of. Marcel Sabitzer missed the best chance after just over five minutes with a shot past the goal.

After the excitement surrounding Guirassy’s handball, the duel became increasingly flat. Dortmund was also extremely clumsy in its offensive efforts and did not play as if the goal was to qualify for the Champions League again.

“It’s extremely annoying today. The only criticism I make to us is that we don’t kill the game,” said Nuri Sahin: “We should have scored the second goal. Today I find it worse and it annoys me more than with the other defeats. I am extremely disappointed and angry.”

Gladbach dominated in the second half

After the break, Gladbach Borussia became bolder and took more and more control of the game. But BVB took the lead through Gittens, who scored in the third game in a row and smashed the ball unstoppably under the crossbar.

A little later, referee Stieler was once again the focus when he rightly did not punish an alleged handball by Bensebaini in the penalty area. Immediately afterwards, the video referee had to point out a clear foul by Pascal Groß on his national team colleague Tim Kleindienst. This time the penalty whistle was delayed.

“For me it’s not a penalty. Definitely even. We push the body, he and I. For me that is never, ever a penalty. And the fact that the video referee intervenes is even more incomprehensible to me,” complained Groß.

“I suspected a hold and therefore consulted the video referee,” explained Stieler after the match.

Summer signing Stöger, who was given preference over Robin Hack in the starting line-up this time, didn’t miss this chance and scored the deserved equaliser. “It was a good team performance,” said Stöger: “We’re happy to take the point with us.”