Borussia Dortmund 7-0 Nuremberg
Borussia Dortmund are back in the title chase, and man oh man, they are back with force!
After their humbling draw with Hoffenheim last week, it looks like Lucien Favre and Dortmund are ready to challenge Bayern Munich at the top of Bundesliga as they thrashed newly promoted Nuremberg at the Signal Iduna Park.
The pre-match Bundesliga 2018 odds had BVB as the overwhelming favourites, but their seven goals were no less surprising especially against a team that hasn’t conceded more than one goal in their first four outings in the German top flight.
Highlights of the game
Six players scored in an impressive night for BVB, with captain fantastic Marco Reus leading the charge for the rising club.
Michael Kollner’s Nuremberg had moments of brilliance and were unfortunate not to find the back of the net even once, but the Dortmund victory was beyond doubt as the home team showed that they are a cut above their opponents in all areas.
Jacob Bruun Larsen opened the scoring—and the floodgates—off a sensational Christian Pulisic assist in nine minutes, and they never looked back from there and ripped the visitors apart with another goal in the first half and five more after the break.
Reus, who was handed the captain’s armband before the 2018/19 season, doubled the team’s lead 23 minutes later with a missile shot from the top of the box. The 29-year-old forward could have made it 2-0 sooner, but his 10th-minute close-range effort was saved by Fabian Bredlow.
Nuremberg showed more spirit on the offensive end after Larsen’s goal, with Yuya Kobo and Virgil Misidjan threatening BVB. However, they were made to pay for their lack of clinical finishing when Reus slammed the ball home for his 99th BVB strike.
It was all Dortmund once again after the restart, and the home crowd didn’t need to wait for long to see the team get an insurmountable lead.
Reus sparked a BVB counter-attack on 49 minutes and turned provider for 19-year-old debutant Achraf Hakimi who sent a blazing low shot to the bottom right corner. Reus then made it four to nothing with a relatively easy tap-in from Bruun Laarsen, having taken advantage of a long ball from Thomas Delaney that caught Nuremberg off guard.
Manuel Akanji piled more misery on Nuremberg and scored in the follow up after Bredlow deflected Pulisic’s header. Teenage phenom Jadon Sancho then grabbed the Bundesliga 2018 highlights as he brought BVB to seventh heaven with a goal and an assist in the last five minutes of play.
With the visitors having seemingly given up hope, Delaney sent another long ball to the Nuremberg box which Sancho easily converted for his first league goal of the campaign. The 18-year-old then teed up Julian Weigl to round up the one-sided encounter.
Key statistics
While it’s astonishing to see Nuremberg concede that many goals given their record, BVB were simply on a different level. And that is clear with the post-match statistics that show the home team dominating possession (70 percent) and having 20 shots, 10 of which are on target.
BVB’s performance was a first for this season, with no other team yet scoring six or more goals in one game.
Reus was terrific throughout, and his 100 goals for BVB put him among the club’s greatest players list. Only six players in Dortmund history have scored more than the German international.
Moreover, with his goals in the game, Reus has now scored against 17 of the 18 Bundesliga teams—with Fortuna the only club missing to complete the list.
Sancho’s strike, meanwhile, was his second for Dortmund since joining the club in the summer of 2017.
It was a terrific night for the likes of Akanji, Bruun Larsen and Hakimi too, as their goals in the game were the firsts in the German top flight.
What’s next?
Borussia Dortmund face the surging Bayer Leverkusen next who are on a three-game winning streak in all competitions. The odds on SBOBET between the two are already tight—with Favre’s side given only a slight advantage—but BVB will certainly look at their dominant win over Nuremberg as a source of confidence.
It’s the Champions League after that as Dortmund eye to beat Monaco in hopes of breaking their deadlock with Atletico Madrid in the Group A standings.
Nuremberg, on the other hand, host fellow newcomers Fortuna Dusseldorf for their next league game. Both sides have one win, two draws and two defeats, so their match at the Max-Morlock-Stadion is expected to be a tight affair.
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