Nine months after their last Champions League appearance, Borussia Dortmund started another campaign in the Europe’s strongest competition and around 71000 fans at the Signal Iduna Park were happy to see a confident-not so exciting-Borussia win over Copenhagen. Even thou the Millionaires won their last two games, fans still had the 2-0 lead turned into a 3-2 defeat against Werder 20 days ago, but there was no concern for them today: Borussia – Copenhagen 3-0. 17 – Jude Bellingham is making his 17th appearance in the UEFA Champions League this evening, with no English teenager ever making more in the competition (also 17 for Theo Walcott). Education. pic.twitter.com/NK0bCVTamz— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 6, 2022 Unlike last season, where Borussia had a relatively easy group (Ajax, Sporting, Besiktas), this year BVB is facing a much difficult task, since they are without Erling Haaland, but also without his replacement Sebastien Haller (tumor) and they are playing Manchester City, Seville, and Copenhagen. This means that tonight’s home games was an absolute must win for the Millionaires and a bit of nervousness could be seen in the first 30 minutes of the game. Until the first Borussia goal, the game was tough to watch. Both teams could barely reach their own penalty areas and even thou they had two decent chances, nothing serious happened. It was so desperate, than Dortmund’s center back Niklas Sule had to make a run deep into the opposition field and he actually started a chance which resulted in the first goal. Sule took the ball from his own half, went into the Copenhagen territory and passed the ball to Brandt, who made a lovely pass between to players to Marco Reus, who had a small cameo and made himself a chance which ended with a leading goal. Just seven minutes later, it was 2-0. Guerreiro was pressing and took the ball away before laying it onto Reyna for a quick one-two before he received the ball back in the box and tapping it home.Second half started with a great chance from the visitors, but Lerager shot directly at Alexander Meyer. And that was basically all they could do in the second half. Borussia totally ‘closed’ the game, made adequate substitutions on time and never allowed Copenhagen to sneak one in and make this game interesting. In fact, they even managed the third goa, after a beautiful play action, which ended with Jude Bellingham’s third goal in the Champions League for the final score. UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE – MATCHDAY 1Tuesday Dinamo Zagreb – Chelsea 1-0 (1-0)/Orsic 13/Dortmund – Copenhagen 3-0 (2-0)/Reus 35, Guerreiro 42, Bellingham 83/22.00: (3.50) Salzburg (3.50) Milan (2.20)22.00: (5.90) Celtic (4.10) Real Madrid (1.63)22.00: (1.22) RB Leipzig (6.50) Shakhtar (13.0)22.00: (9.00) Sevilla (4.90) Man.City (1.40)22.00: (1.25) Benfica (6.75) Maccabi Haifa (13.0)22.00: (1.40) PSG (5.30) Juventus (8.00)Wednesday 19.45: (1.50) Ajax (4.60) Rangers (7.00)19.45: (2.25) Eintr.Frankfurt (3.50) Sporting (3.35)22.00: (3.80) Napoli (3.60) Liverpool (2.05)22.00: (1.85) Atl.Madrid (3.50) Porto (5.00)22.00: (3.40) Club Brugge (3.60) Leverkusen (2.20)22.00: (1.07) Barcelona (15.0) Plzen (35.0)22.00: (4.10) Inter (3.80) Bayern (1.92)22.00: (1.53) Tottenham (4.30) Olympique Marseille (7.00)***odds are subject to change
