Berlin: Borussia Dortmund bounced back from defeat on the opening day of the Bundesliga season to run out 3-2 winners at Augsburg on Friday with Marco Reus, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Adrian Ramos all on target. Jurgen Klopp’s side needed to survive a late scare at the SGL Arena, however, as Augsburg trimmed back a three-goal deficit before the final whistle ended their hopes of completing a remarkable comeback.
Dortmund were beaten 2-0 at home by Bayer Leverkusen last Saturday after conceding the opening goal with just nine seconds played, the result putting a dampener on their hopes of seriously challenging Bayern Munich for the title. In Bavaria, Klopp brought goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller and centre-back Neven Subotic back into his starting line-up, while summer signing Ciro Immobile was dropped to the bench at the expense of Kevin Grosskreutz.
And Dortmund were almost out of sight after scoring twice in the opening quarter of an hour. First, Reus played a one-two with Grosskreutz and beat Marwin Hitz in goal with a lovely finish, and then a Reus corner from the right was headed home by Greek defender Papastathopoulos. “I’m just happy to be back on the pitch, to be playing football,” said Reus, who missed Germany’s World Cup-winning campaign through injury.
Colombian striker Ramos, a summer buy from Hertha Berlin, came off the bench in the 73rd minute and scored his first goal for his new club five minutes later, tapping home after Hitz had parried out Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s shot. Augsburg, who lost 2-0 at Hoffenheim on the opening weekend, reduced the arrears in the 82nd minute through burly Argentine striker Raul Bobadilla and his fellow substitute Tim Matavz headed in another goal with a minute remaining, but it proved too little, too late for Markus Weinzierl’s side.
“We were too focused on the penalty decision rather than what was happening on the pitch,” Dortmund defender Neven Subotic said. “We came here with the intention to play at full throttle for the whole 90 minutes, a couple more than 90 minutes,” he added. Dortmund ‘keeper’ Roman Weidenfeller denied Tobias Werner an equalizer in injury time. “A huge compliment to the side for continuing to play after it was 3-0,” Augsburg manager Stefan Reuter said.
