Nuremberg Pole-axed in Dortmund
Dortmund - Borussia Dortmund moved up to second in the Bundesliga table courtesy of a 3-0 win over 1.FC Nuremberg, a result sealed by their Polish connection.
One-way traffic
Jakub Blaszczykowski set the Westphalians on course for victory with two goals in three first-half minutes before Robert Lewandowski completed the scoring two minutes from time.
Sebastian Kehl wasted Dortmund’s first chance of the night in the fourth minute, heading wide from Marco Reus' cross, but it was a sign of things to come for Nuremberg. Dortmund laid siege to the Bavarians' goal and it was only going to be a matter of time before they made the breakthrough. They had to survive a scare of their own in the 15th minute, though, when Roman Weidenfeller saved from both Tomas Pekhart and Markus Feulner, but two minutes later, BVB were ahead.
Timo Gebhart and Lukasz Piszczek both jostled for the ball in the box with the Dortmund player going to ground, earning a penalty which his compatriot Blaszczykowski converted by sending Raphael Schäfer the wrong way. The celebrations in the stands had barely finished when Blaszczykowski bagged his brace. Mario Götze tricked his way past Javier Pinola before sending in a low cross which was met by the unmarked Pole to score his and Dortmund’s second goal in the space of three minutes.
Insatiable
Dortmund were hungry for more and Piszczek was denied by Raphael Schäfer when he tried to lob the last line of the Nuremberg defence, but despite their efforts, they were unable to add a third before the break, with Lewandowski having an effort ruled out for offside.
It may have been Dortmund's day, but it was not so much Lewandowski's. On the hour mark, he saw two chances go begging, the second being blocked on the goal line by a defender as the home side looked to wrap things up. Blaszczykowski and Reus both squandered chances as Jürgen Klopp's men struggled to add the finishing touch, leaving Nuremberg with a glimmer of hope.
Schal-la-la
It was no more than a glimmer, though, as Dortmund not only had a clear superiority on the field, but a 12th man off it. Playing towards the Südtribüne, brought to life even more thanks to the Schal-la-la initiative which convinced all 24,000 of the fans packed in behind Schäfer's goal to wear a black and yellow scarves. It was not only intimidating, but also effective, and the noise they were producing became deafening when Nuri Sahin came on for the last 15 minutes to make his first home appearance since arriving from Real Madrid CF.
Like last week in the victory over Werder Bremen, he was on the field for the final goal of the game, although he did not have a direct part to play in it. Instead, it was Reus and Lewandowski who broke forward with the latter taking out his frustration in not scoring earlier by hammering the ball powerfully into the roof of the net to wrap up a comfortable win for the hosts.
Line-ups and statistics
