Strong finish saves shambolic performance against Paderborn

Dortmund threw away the first half of the match in historic fashion, going down 3:0 while pretending like the game resembled high school gym class. Slow, tedious possession led to effective and lightning fast Paderborn counters led by Streli Mamba. The team looked like they did not want to play, and that they wanted Lucien Favre to be removed from his position at the club. As the halftime whistle blew, Westfalenstadion was overtly booing the team and the club for the lackluster performance.

At halftime, Favre made changes, using his last two substitutions to remove Dahoud and Schultz, both atrocious on the night, for Hazard and Hakimi, as Alcacer went off injured at the end of the first half. Within 90 seconds, Jadon Sancho scored through some great combination play on the right hand side of the pitch, as BVB showed a renewed intensity to restore their dignity. Despite showing a greater intensity in the second half, it took 37 minutes to score the 2nd goal in the comeback, as Witsel latched onto a Hummels cross to head the ball into the far side of the net. At the death, Reus managed to run onto a Sancho cross from the right side to head the ball past Paderborn’s keeper for the draw.

Despite the memes, the second half performance was encouraging. It saved Favre’s job. If that shambolic performance happened during the second half of the match instead of the first, Favre would be out of a job right now. That’s a credit to the players, but that makes no excuse for the pathetic experience that was the first 45 minutes of that match.