Dortmund 4-1 RB Leipzig: Four unanswered goals give Lucien Favre his first win at BVB

Dortmund manager Lucien Favre won’t be too happy about the way his team started his first game in charge of the club, but he will be happy about the way they responded to such a poor start.

Jean-Kevin Augustin scored for Red Bull Leipzig just thirty seconds into the match, but BVB responded with a flurry of goals as they went on to win 4-1 at the Westfalenstadion.

Initially, Dortmund looked to be in trouble. Augustin scored the opener and Leipzig were effectively pressing the ball and creating the better chances.

Favre’s side, complete with all its new players, just needed to settle into the game. The result was incredibly impressive when they finally did so.

Mahmoud Dahoud has been hit-or-miss for Dortmund since joining the club, but he made a key impact in the 21st minute. Marcel Schmelzer provided a great ball into the box and Dahoud met it with a diving header to score BVB’s first goal of the new campaign.

The Black and Yellows continued to play on the counter, but they upped their possession numbers as the half and the game went on. Then they hit Leipzig with two hay-makers in the lead up to halftime.

On 40 minutes Christian Pulisic and Marco Reus stood over a free kick from a wide position. Pulisic had already contributed some quality set-pieces, but it was Reus who took this one. Marcel Sabitzer was one of the first players defending, but his attempt to head the ball away only altered its trajectory to put it past Péter Gulácsi for an own goal.

New signing Axel Witsel made it three just a few minutes later. This time the set-piece was a corner kick coming from the other side of the pitch. Gulácsi flew through the air to deny Thomas Delaney, but he couldn’t parry the shot completely out of harms way. Witsel stepped up and hammered the ball into the back of the net with an acrobatic bicycle kick.

It was Witsel’s second goal of the season after he also tallied against Fürth. So far, he is looking like a quality signing.

The second half wasn’t as exciting.

Both teams were poor overall, but Dortmund were threatened a bit by the visitors closer to full time. Timo Werner and Bruma both had chances that could’ve easily resulted in Leipzig goals, but Roman Burki stood tall to keep the score at 3-1.

And then it was 4-1. Reus bagged his 100th Bundesliga goal on a counter-attack in stoppage time. It was a fitting end to a pleasant start to the new season.

Dortmund will try to build on this result when they play Hannover 96 on Friday.