DORTMUND, Germany – Borussia Dortmund kept their perfect home record intact with a 1-0 victory over Wolfsburg on Saturday, extending their unbeaten Bundesliga run to 12 matches while handing the visitors their first defeat of the season.
Both teams came into this game with unbeaten records so there was plenty at stake from the start. Wolfsburg had the first real chance when Mohamed Amoura got into a good position but blazed his shot well over the bar when he should of done much better.
Dortmund made them pay almost straight away with a brilliant goal from Karim Adeyemi. The 23-year-old picked up the ball about 25 yards out and smashed a thunderbolt into the net that gave Kamil Grabara no chance. It was Adeyemi’s fourth goal contribution in his last three games and showed exactly why he’s been in such good form lately.
Julian Ryerson, who set up the goal, then whipped in another great cross for Maximilian Beier but the striker’s header went just past the post. Beier had another decent chance before halftime when he carried the ball into the box, but Grabara made a good save to keep it at 1-0.
Despite Dortmund controlling most of the game, Wolfsburg came incredibly close to equalizing just before the hour mark. A free-kick got headed toward Amoura and his poke at goal hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced down, but the whole ball didn’t cross the line. It was millimeters away from being 1-1.
Wolfsburg brought on Christian Eriksen for his debut shortly after that to try and change things, but Dortmund was still the team creating the better chances. Grabara had to make a brilliant save to tip Felix Nmecha’s close-range header over the bar from a corner kick late on.
One goal was all Niko Kovač’s team needed to secure their sixth straight home win and keep pace with Bayern Munich at the top of the table. The victory keeps them right in the title race at this early stage of the season.
For Wolfsburg this was a disappointing performance where they only managed one shot on target all game. They was pretty meek going forward and couldn’t really test the Dortmund defense much. They’re still looking for their first away win against Dortmund since 2012 which shows how tough this fixture has been for them.
On the positive side for Paul Simonis, this was his first defeat as Wolfsburg manager so he can still be happy with how his team has started the season overall.
