Hamburg never look back, steamroll lackluster Dortmund
The Bundesliga returned after the international weekend as Hamburg recorded a sensational 3-1 win over Borussia Dortmund to kickoff Matchday 13.
Pierre-Michel Lasogga and Lewis Holtby netted before the break as the Northern Germans raced into a two-goal lead by halftime. Mats Hummels' night went from bad-to-worse when he headed into his own net to give Bruno Labbadia's much-improved team an unassailable lead. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's stunning scoring run continued as he scored a consolation late on.
Three points for Hamburg sees them jump into eighth, level with Cologne, while Borussia Dortmund could find themselves eight points behind Bayern Munich by the close of play on Saturday night.
The return of domestic football was welcomed following the events of the past seven days. Germany's national team were caught up in the attacks on the Stade de France a week ago, while their home friendly with the Netherlands in Hannover was called off due to security concerns.
Security was heightened in Hamburg -- as it will be across all Bundesliga matches â which led to a 15-minute kickoff delay as thousands of supporters missed the start of play. With traffic problems and a concert nearby compounding those problems, it was a small price to pay for safety on a bitterly cold Friday evening.
Both sides paid their respect to the victims of the Paris attacks and former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, whose funeral procession on Monday will go through his home city of Hamburg. After kickoff, frustration turned to the surface at the Volksparkstadion, an overslick, skiddy surface causing both teams to lose the ball frequently.
Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel welcomed Marco Reus back to his starting line-up following the attacker's recent injury problems. Reus missed the 3-2 derby win over Schalke last week and he replaced Gonzalo Castro in the side. But even with an impressive 69 goals this season in all competitions, the visitors looked pedestrian in possession and created no notable chances in the early exchanges.
On 18 minutes, Hamburg struck first when Dortmund failed to deal with the counterattack and Ivo Ilicevic was brought down in the box by Roman Bürki. The Swiss goalie was only shown a yellow card for denying a clear goalscoring chance because Ilicevic was taking the ball away from goal. Lasogga stepped up and rattled the ball into the net, the 23-year-old striker's sixth goal of the season.
Dortmund's response was as expected, but uncharacteristically, Tuchel's men just couldn't move the compact Hamburg block when in possession. Reus dribbled inside on 22 minutes and his shot was deflected into the arms of Rene Adler. Past the half hour mark, a deep cross was miscontrolled by Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Hamburg cleared.
And on 41 minutes, the home side punished a slack pass from Dortmund's Matthias Ginter to earn a second. Ginter's ball went through to Nicolai Müller, the outstanding right-sided attacker on the night who held the ball up for his teammates to join up. To his right, Holtby steamed ahead, received it and tucked it past Bürki.
Tuchel wasted little time in changing his tactics: Shinji Kagawa and Matthias Ginter were replaced by Adnan Januzaj and Lukasz Piszczek at the break. The Pole is more natural fit at right-back and can take on opponents compared with Ginter whose late runs into the box were nullified by Ilicevic in the first half.
But Hamburg's showing as aggressive, well-coordinated as we've seen for many seasons. The former European champions, a side never to have been relegated in the Bundesliga, executed a solid game plan, blocking central passing angles for Dortmund's key trio - Weigl, Kagawa and Gundogan - and getting bodies up in support of a front-three.
Unconvincing at the first two goals, Hummels rounded off a terrible night, heading in spectacularly from a corner kick to give the Red Shorts a 3-0 lead. The signs were becoming ominous as Hamburg, Dortmund's bogey team in recent years, tightened up the ship and looked to defend the lead.
When Dortmund finally started to get going, the job was already done. Hamburg keeper Rene Adler has a propensity to dance between the excellent and the terrible these days, but Friday was one of his better performances. On 60 minutes, the former German international reacted sharply to pull off a super save from Aubameyang. A quarter of an hour later, Adler was agile enough to turn behind a goal-bound free kick from midfielder Ilkay Gundogan. Mkhitaryan's left-foot shot from an angle failed to hit the target on 81 minutes.
Aubameyang took his tally to 15 for the season, finishing off from close range to make it 3-1 before Adler made another wonderful save and the striker saw an effort ruled out for offside in stoppage time. Tuchel's men suffer defeat in the Bundesliga for the second time this season as they lose further ground on Bayern at the top of the table.
