Despite long spell with ten men: BVB U23 beat leaders Fortuna Köln | OneFootball

Borussia Dortmund II were not thrown off course by the international break and secured their third straight win on Saturday afternoon. Against league leaders Fortuna Köln, BVB’s U23 remarkably came away with a 1-0 victory at Stadion Rote Erde despite playing for around an hour with ten men, thereby consolidating fifth place in the table with room to climb higher.

In front of 1,583 spectators, BVB started brightly compared to the 1-0 win at Bonner SC, with Patrick Göbel replacing Samuele Inacio, who had been called up to the first-team squad, but they were unable to make the most of their early chances and then had to thank goalkeeper Silas Ostrzinski several times for preventing them from falling behind. In the 30th minute, however, the match seemed to slip away from Borussia when Elias Benkara was sent off with a red card for a professional foul.

But even with a man down, coach Daniel Rios’ side more than held their own against the league leaders from Cologne, who had been unbeaten since August, and shortly before the break they even took the lead with a fair slice of luck. An attempted clearance by Köln’s David Haider struck Mathis Albert on the head, and from there the ball bounced into the visitors’ net to make it 1-0 for BVB — and at the same time give the 16-year-old German-American his first senior goal.

BVB shut things down and miss chance to put the game to bed

In the second half, BVB naturally dropped a little deeper while down a man, but thanks to their solid organization they managed to prevent the visitors, who were only superficially superior, from creating any clear-cut chances. At the other end, Borussia repeatedly looked dangerous on the counter, but Danylo Krevsun, Babis Drakas and Kevin Mutove, among others, missed the decisive second goal.

Photo: Getty Images

BVB’s black-and-yellow back line therefore remained under pressure until the final whistle, but collectively they managed to see out the narrow lead and hand Köln only their second league defeat of the season.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.