Tag: Gregor Kobel

Bayern showed up for Der Klassiker. Dortmund, not so much.

Dortmund’s wheels fell off after an unfathomable error from Gregor Kobel

Saturday’s Der Klassiker was supposed to be a truly big match. Borussia Dortmund has been giving Bayern Munich — who have won the last 10 Bundesliga titles — their first real race for first in years, and kicked today’s game off with a one-point lead atop the table.

Unfortunately for Dortmund, that was not even remotely reflected in an absolute nightmare of a game for them. Their former coach Thomas Tuchel’s new club capitalized on an astounding early error from from Gregor Kobel, going up 3-0 by the 23rd minute. The 4-2 final scoreline in Bayern’s favor flattered Dortmund in the end.

At home and under their own sort of pressure — very few teams would have fired Julian Nagelsmann while in a title race and having a perfect record in the Champions League — Bayern were in charge, but it still took one of the strangest errors the Bundesliga has seen in years to hand them a lead.

Dayot Upamecano, 11 yards inside his own half, saw a run from Leroy Sané in behind, and decided to try to play him behind. Sadly, the ball was overhit, skipping by Sané before the winger could get a touch. It happens, we know how this goes: ball rolls on, goalkeeper collects inside the box.

Kobel, apparently not being able to see that Sané was a good five yards from getting a touch, opted instead to charge out of his box and take an awkward swing at a clearance. That’s a bad choice, but it gets even worse when you see that his attempt to kick the ball included completely missing it.

Upamecano, therefore, got himself a goal from around 70 yards, while Kobel looked completely crestfallen at his involvement one of the strangest goals anywhere in the world.

From there, Dortmund completely unraveled. Thomas Müller struck for a five-minute brace, first touching Matthijs de Ligt’s header from a corner past Kobel in the 18th minute, and then tapping in a rebound after Kobel spilled Sané’s powerful shot from distance.

The halftime break didn’t fix much for Dortmund. In the 50th minute, Sané slashed inside against a hesitant defense before slipping a pass through several players that found Kingsley Coman for an emphatic finish.

Dortmund finally showed up for the game sometime around the hour mark, and the final score on the day will possibly obscure just how shambolic they were in the first 60 minutes. Emre Can buried a 72nd minute penalty, and Donyell Malen’s 90th minute goal made the loss look a little more like a normal road loss rather than a disaster.

The win takes Bayern two points ahead of Dortmund in the table, but the psychological side of things may end up making this a decisive result for both teams.

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