Just another raw and savage night of Champions League football at the Westfalen: the colours vivid, the sounds ear-shattering, the defences in utter disarray. Late goals from Niclas Fullkrug and Marcel Sabitzer secured Borussia Dortmund’s passage to the semi-finals, breaking open an Atlético Madrid who look a grey scale model of the battleships Diego Simeone once produced.
It was flawed and it was chaotic, and even amid Dortmund’s elation there remains the eternal question of whether they are ever going to allow us to take them seriously, whether they will ever escape this riotously entertaining cycle of boom and bust. This tie felt like a whole psychodrama in its own right, and one Atlético could quite conceivably have finished within the first half-hour in Madrid.
If Edin Terzic had learned anything from the pandemonium of that first leg, then it was not immediately evident. Again Sabitzer was sent forward as a kind of midfielder without portfolio, sniffing for space, pressing the last man, essentially leaving Emre Can to staff the centre on his own, like a lone nightwatchman patrolling a giant armoury at night. For at least the first quarter of the game, Dortmund were a 4-1-5 with the ball, giving them plenty of options but also leaving them desperately vulnerable on the break.
It was a binary perfectly illustrated within the first five minutes. First Sabitzer ghosted into the box to meet Karim Adeyemi’s cross from six yards, only to be denied by a miraculous block from Ceésar Azpilicueta. Immediately after that a simple clearance from Axel Witsel was flicked into the path of Álvaro Morata, who suddenly found himself in the clear with half the field to run into. Simeone looked genuinely pained – although, it has to be said, not altogether surprised – as Morata bore down on Gregor Kobel’s goal, went for the cheeky dink, and put it wide.
And perhaps that box-office opening seemed to spook both teams a little. Around 20 minutes in Sabitzer was pulled back into a more conventional screening role, and the game settled into a slightly less frenetic pattern. This actually suited Dortmund, who were dominating possession and just needed a little more poise to craft their approach. Sure enough the deadlock was broken after a patient passing move: a perfectly-judged diagonal from Mats Hummels finding the run of Julian Brandt, and though Brandt’s finish was good, Jan Oblak should probably have done better from a tight angle.
At which point Atlético encountered a familiar problem in these sorts of games: the difficulty of kicking back into gear having already settled in for a defensive rearguard. For all Antoine Griezmann’s industry they never really looked like they had a plan to break the Dortmund press, and after a neat exchange of passes on the Dortmund left, Koke lost the run of Ian Maatsen, who slipped into the channel and slammed in a powerful shot.
We don’t know exactly what wisdom Simeone had to impart at the break. From the chastened faces and triple substitution that emerged from the Atlético dressing room at the start of the second half, it’s not entirely certain we would have been able to print it anyway. Both wing-backs were replaced, as well as Morata: not so much a tactical substitution as a tantrum, Simeone showing his players the abyss and daring them to step away from it.
after newsletter promotion
Remarkably, it worked. Rodrigo Riquelme on the left immediately injected a little more energy and flair than Azpilicueta had, Ángel Correa looked more lively and dangerous than Morata, and as ever with Dortmund the frailties are never too far from the surface. Mario Hermoso’s free header was diverted into his own net by Hummels four minutes into the second half. By the time Correa slid the ball wide when clear through on goal, before converting a rebound to give his side the aggregate lead, Simeone was in full pantomime mode: raging at the fates, lying prone on the turf, one of those spellbinding performances when you know he is either being possessed by God or the devil, but you don’t know which.
The game was formless and void, darkness moving over the surface of the watery deep, and yet the spirit of Sabitzer was moving across the water. First, and quite at random, Fullkrug glanced in his speculative cross from the left. Next Atlético failed to clear a simple diagonal ball, and Sabitzer’s shot was experimental, wild, unrefined and yet going nowhere but the bottom corner. As the minutes leaked away, Atlético thrashed and writhed, bent themselves into new and unfamiliar shapes. But the deed was done.
- Download the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhone or the Google Play store on Android by searching for ‘The Guardian’.
- If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you’re on the most recent version.
- In the Guardian app, tap the Menu button at the bottom right, then go to Settings (the gear icon), then Notifications.
- Turn on sport notifications.
","credit":""}” config=”{"renderingTarget":"Web","darkModeAvailable":false}”>
Quick Guide
How do I sign up for sport breaking news alerts?
Show
- Download the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhone or the Google Play store on Android by searching for ‘The Guardian’.
- If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you’re on the most recent version.
- In the Guardian app, tap the Menu button at the bottom right, then go to Settings (the gear icon), then Notifications.
- Turn on sport notifications.