Signal Iduna Park was the place where Borussia Dortmund got visited by Sevilla in the Champions League. We got player ratings.
After Borussia Dortmund’s first-leg victory against Sevilla, the German squad had a relatively easy task at Signal Iduna Park. But the most recent Europa League champion wasn’t going to allow defeat with such ease. We were in for a bumpy ride between two of the most exciting football clubs in the world. On one side, you had Julen Lopetegui’s electric squad against one of the most exciting new talents in recent years: Erling Haaland.
The lad from Norway wanted to keep growing his legend in the Champions League with more goals against a worthy opponent. He scored the opening goal ten minutes before the break after an assist from Marco Reus. During the celebration, Haaland lifted his captain in the air from pure excitement. But the second half was going to give us a true heart-stopping time with all the drama you can possibly imagine. Haaland was also at the center of it.
VAR confuses everybody.
The big moment of the match came right after Haaland got knocked down inside the box but the ref didn’t do anything. During the same play, the Norwegian kid scored his second goal but the ref soon decided to disallow it. The confusion came as he reviewed the replay from VAR, they were showing him the previous penalty where Haaland gets fouled. After minutes of reviewing the replay, the ref called a penalty that Bounou saved from Haaland and yelled it in his face.
However, the drama continued as the ref repeated the penalty after the Sevilla goalkeeper was clearly out of the goal-line. On the second attempt, Haaland got sweet revenge by screaming the goal in front of Bounou’s face. All the Sevilla players were hurt by these VAR decisions but they still managed to score two goals from En-Nesyri before the final whistle. In the end, Sevilla was only one goal short of going to extra time. As we all expected, this knock-out stage was extremely entertaining but Dortmund got the last laugh.
Player ratings
Borussia Dortmund: Hitz (6), Schulz (6), Hummels (7), Can (7), Morey (6), Dahoud (6), Delaney (7), Bellingham (7), Hazard (7), Reus (7), Haaland (8).
Bench: Passlack (6), Zagadou (6), Meunier (6).
Sevilla: Bounou (4), Navas (6), Carlos (6), Kounde (5), Fernando (6), Ocampos (5), Acuna (5), Jordan (5), Rodriguez (5), Suso (5), En-Nesyri (7).
Bench: De Jong (6), Papu (6), Torres (5), Munir (6), Rakitic (5).
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