Borussia Dortmund dropped potentially vital points in the Bundesliga title race after being held to a 1-1 draw by VfL Bochum at the Vonovia Ruhrstadion tonight. An early strike by Anthony Losilla gave the hosts the lead only for Karim Adeyemi to equalise straight after.
Despite numerous chances, there were no further goals and Edin Terzic was left frustrated as his side failed to overcome the basement strugglers. Here are five takeaways from Friday’s clash.
1. Over to you Bayern
After taking advantage of Bayern’s loss last weekend to take over at the top, BVB have handed the initiative back to Bayern, who can reclaim top spot with a win over Hertha on Sunday. Dortmund are going to be praying for a miracle that bottom side Hertha can take points off Bayern, but that seems hugely unlikely.
There are sure to be a few more twists and turns in this season’s title race, but the Schwarzgelben didn’t come through the first of their five cup finals unscathed and the Meisterschale pendulum may have just swung back in Bayern’s direction.
2. Riemann the hero
So often this season Bochum keeper Manuel Riemann has been the fall guy with comical errors leading to goals and the barracking from the home fans led to him having a set-to with a fan on the terraces a couple of weeks back.
Tonight however he was the star for Bochum producing two crucial saves to deny Dortmund the full three points and hand his side a share of the spoils. He pulled off a great save to deny Youssoufa Moukoko shortly after he had come on and then later stretched superbly to snuff out a goal-bound effort from Jude Bellingham. Earlier he had come off his line superbly to deny the onrushing Adeyemi.
3. Bochum’s survival hopes live on
It was two points dropped by Dortmund, but one important point gained by Bochum in their fight to retain their Bundesliga status. If Stuttgart fail to beat Borussia Mönchengladbach this weekend, then Bochum will remain outside the bottom three by the skin of their teeth.
Last week’s loss to Bochum saw them looking like a doomed team, but the fight shown against Dortmund tonight will give them renewed hope.
4. Were Dortmund denied two penalties?
Edin Terzic will be fuming about the two penalties that his side were denied and his anger at the time led to a yellow card from referee Sascha Stegemann. Danilo Soares can consider himself very lucky not to have been punished for a very clumsy tackle on Karim Adeyemi where he took the player prior to the ball arriving. The video assistant team in Köln didn’t deem it an obvious error from the referee and he wasn’t advised to take a second look.
The second penalty appeal late in the game came after a nominal handball, but the Bochum player was falling and it would have been an extremely harsh call had it been given. So one very possible penalty and one not.
5. The urgency came too late for BVB
Dortmund threw everything at Bochum in the final five minutes plus stoppage time, but by that time things began to get a little desperate. Marco Reus, Youssoufa Moukoko, Giovanni Reyna, Anthony Modeste and Marius Wolf were all sent on to no avail. The visitors needed to have upped the tempo much earlier and the draw will definitely be seen as two points dropped rather than a point gained.
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