2-1 in Wolfsburg: “Won it late with luck and quality” | OneFootball

Borussia Dortmund secured a 2-1 victory at VfL Wolfsburg thanks to a late goal by Serhou Guirassy in the 87th minute, marking their fifth consecutive Bundesliga win. The fact that, at least for one night, the gap to FC Bayern Munich—who face TSG Hoffenheim in Sunday’s top match—was reduced to just three points, was naturally a topic of discussion after the game.

After Nico Schlotterbeck had already made it clear a week earlier that he still wanted to catch Bayern, Julian Brandt made a similar statement to Bild: “No one has ever said that we gave up at any point. We keep trying to win our games and hope that Bayern will let us catch up. Every one of us wants to be champions, every season!”

Brandt, who scored the opening goal for BVB in a strong first half, also admitted that the win in the Autostadt was hanging by a thread: “It was a war of attrition with a lot of back and forth. We were too slow, had difficult decision-making, and simply took too many touches. We brought Wolfsburg back to life in the second half and were lucky in some situations.”

Mentality and Quality as Success Factors

Schlotterbeck openly addressed the poor second half, but also highlighted two key success factors on Sky: “We did what people have been saying for years we lack: we showed mentality. We played a good first half and a bad second half. But we have the individual quality to decide games like this.”

This individual class, which led to the 2-1 winning goal, was also mentioned by Niko Kovac in the post-match press conference: “What Felix Nmecha, Fabio Silva, and Serhou Guirassy did at the end was really top class,” said the BVB coach, who also struggled with the second 45 minutes and largely agreed with his players’ analysis: “We slowed the game down, lost the ball too easily, and the opponent immediately countered after winning possession. That gave VfL a lot of big chances. My team then showed mentality and, with luck and quality, still managed to win the game.”

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