German Bundesliga – VfB Stuttgart lose 1-3 to Borussia Dortmund at home
Borussia Dortmund stunned the German football world as they went on to beat VfB Stuttgart at home in a match that was decided in the first-half.
The match got underway in Stuttgart's home-ground, the Mercedes-Benz Arena, and was viewed by numerous fans who packed almost every inch of the stadium; there were barely any empty seats in sight on the night.
As the match got underway, to everyone's surprise it was the away team that went on the offensive. Usually the home teams are the ones that begin the onslaught, but this time around that was not the case.
This early pressure seemed to be getting to Stuttgart, who conceded as early as the fifth minute. This time, however, it wasn't an opposition player who put the ball into the back of the net, but instead it was Khalid Boulahrouz who scored an own goal on the night and gave the visitors the lead.
The home-fans and the home team didn't know what hit them, and they never seemed to fully recover from the early goal. After twenty minutes of beautiful football by Dortmund, the visitors struck again.
This time around, however, it was the away team’s prolific striker Lucas Barrios who scored for the team with a delightful finish. Stuttgart were now aware that the game was slipping out of their hands as the minutes went by.
Any hope that the home team would have had to start a comeback was killed in the thirty-seventh minute when right wing forward, Mario Gotze, scored for Dortmund. The player sneaked in a goal out of nowhere and the away team were three goals up on the home side who were favourites to lift the German Bundesliga title this season.
The first half ended with the score being three goals to nil in favour of the away team. At the half time break, both the managers would have had completely different speeches to give to their teams; with one manager urging his team to go all out, the other must have been urging his team to stay put and hold the lead that they had.
When the second half kicked off, it seemed like both the teams were doing exactly as their managers had said, with Stuttgart now looking the more threatening and Dortmund containing the home team.
It was the home team that got the first goal of the second half, with Cacau sneaking in a goal on the sixty-ninth minute. However, even though the forward scored, he knew that the team would have to go all out in the remaining twenty minutes if they wished to get some points out of the game.
Even though Stuttgart kept pushing, they just couldn't seem to break the deadlock that the resilient Dortmund defence had formed. The match ended with the score-line reading three goals to one in favour of the visiting team and hence blew the title race wide open.
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