Thanks to the polish player’s goal three minutes before the end, borussia dortmund was spared another bitter experience of dejà vu in the champions league. "We’re not standing there as blod as last year," commented hummels with relief, "finally, as the better team, we’ve been rewarded for once."
In contrast to the early knockout in 2011, borussia did not fall into a hectic state despite numerous missed chances. Sebastian kehl sees this as an indication of growing maturity: "we have proven to ourselves that we can also do europe – even to journalists."Visibly annoyed, the captain called for an end to public lamentations about the lack of international class: "i’m fed up talking about what went wrong last time. Let’s just make a hook under the thing."
With the hard-fought victory over the supposedly easiest group opponent, borussia created a good basis for the games at manchester city and against real madrid. But like kehl, jurgen klopp warned against overestimating the compulsory victory over the match-strength dutchmen. Even the coach knows that the real tests of maturity are yet to come: "for the first time in our recent champions league history, we are second in the league table. That feels better. But we do not derive anything from this."
All parties involved would do well to remain humble. Because for a long time it looked like history could repeat itself. BVB had the advantage on the field, but once again missed too many goal-scoring opportunities. Especially the missed penalty by hummels brought back memories of earlier international appearances. "A catastrophe," admitted hummels, "if the goalkeeper was able to stop the eleven with the paws, you may think about pushing differently the next time."
Thanks to torhuter roman weidenfeller, who kept his team in the game with "three world-class saves" according to klopp, and lewandowski remained the champion in the shall. As in the 3-0 win over leverkusen three days earlier, the tirelessly fighting polish international scored in the final minutes of the game. Klopp gave the goal scorer extra praise: "you have to have the nerve to play off the opponent like that and then sink the thing."
Lewandowski played a key role in ensuring that the coach’s courage was rewarded. For the first time this season, klopp called up the magical duo of marco reus and mario gotze to the starting lineup. In the three bundesliga games so far, the two noble technicians had only been on the pitch together for a full 30 minutes.
Against ajax gotze again realize that he is on a good way to old class after a long forced break. He also recommended himself for further employment in the position of playmaker. The young star commented on the victory with the pragmatism of a veteran: "what pays are the points. But the opponents are not getting any weaker."