After reaching the Champions League final for the first time since 2013, Borussia Dortmund produced one of their worst displays of the season with a 3-0 loss away to Mainz.
In the first half, for no choice of better words, Dortmund were crap. They seemingly lacked any energy or drive and looked to have given up on the Bundesliga season already. Mainz opened the scoring when Leandro Barreiro converted a cutback. Then five minutes later, Dortmund keeper Alexander Meyer played a terrible goal kick right into the path of Jae-Sung Lee who doubled Mainz’s lead.
Barreiro then turned provider for Lee’s second of the game to make it 3-0 to Mainz within 25 minutes. Dortmund managed to gain some control in the latter stages of the first half but were unable to do anything with it.
The second half saw Dortmund in more control but any energy of the game had been sucked out of it as both teams seemed to accept the result. Dortmund did have a goal ruled out from Youssoufa Moukoko but apart from that there were very few chances in the second half.
For Dortmund, they are lucky that this was basically their B-team playing Mainz. In their final game of the season against Darmstadt next Saturday it would be best to maybe try and play your first team in preparation for the Champions League final two weeks after that, as if Dortmund perform to anyway close to how they did today, they will not get close to their second UCL win.
Mainz on the other hand, have taken a big leap towards survival,. Wolfsburg next week they will only need a point to secure their Bundesliga status. This just goes to show the work of Bo Henriksen who took over a team that had looked as if they are already relegated.
Brajan Gruda and Jae-Sung Lee are the stand-out players by far in this game.
Mainz XI:
Robin Zentner (6), Sepp van den Berg (6), Dominik Kohr (6), Andreas Hanche-Olsen (6), Silvan Widmer (7), Leandro Barreiro (7), Nadiem Amiri (7), Anthony Caci (7), Brajan Gruda (7), Jae-Sung Lee (8), Jonathan Burkardt (6)
Others: Edimilson Fernandes (5), Danny da Costa (5), Nelson Weiper (-), Marco Richter (-)
Borussia Dortmund XI:
Alexander Meyer (3), Marius Wolf (4), Niklas Süle (4), Nico Schlotterbeck (5), Mateu Morey (4), Salih Özcan (5), Felix Nmecha (3), Donyell Malen (5), Marco Reus (5), Jamie Bynoe-Gittens (5), Youssoufa Moukoko (5)
Others: Ian Maatsen (5), Jadon Sancho (5), Julian Brandt (5), Ole Pohlmann (5), Kjell Wätjen (5)
GGFN | Jack Meenan
