Borussia Dortmund beat Hoffenheim 0-1 this Saturday, with a solitary goal from Julian Brandt, provisionally assuming the leadership of the Bundesliga, waiting for what happens this Sunday (5:30 p.m.) between Bayern Munich and Union Berlin, the two teams with which he shared the league lead.
Both Bayern and Union, with a victory, could reach Dortmund on points, although only those from Munich, due to goal difference, have a real chance of stripping them of the lead.
Hoffenheim took to the field in the plan to try to keep Dortmund away from their goal. To do this, they defended high and tried to close spaces in the opposite half. The approach worked for close to 20 minutes, in which even Hoffenheim got a good chance with Kabak's header over the goal, but then Dortmund slowly took over.
The ball began to be in the middle of Hoffenheim and Dortmund prowled the area and generated corner kicks and the occasional foul on the sides. The opportunities began to arrive. The first alarm was a double header from Nickla Süle and Nico Schlotterbeck from a corner kick in the 19th minute. Later, in the 33rd minute, Hoffenheim's goalkeeper, Oliver Baumann, had to deflect a shot from Sebastien Haller into a corner kick who had received a good cross from Marius Wolf inside the box. In minute 41, Baumann again had to take a shot from outside the Emre Can area for a corner.
Despite a dangerous shot, deflected, by Sebastian Rudy in the 35th minute that could have given Hoffenheim the advantage, Dortmund's pressure was increasing and the goal ended up coming, in the 43rd minute, through Julian Brandt who extended with the back a Marco Reus free-kick from the left leaving Baumann without an option. Before the break, Dortmund came dangerously twice more through Haller and Wolf.
In the first minutes of the second half, Hoffenheim once again managed to put the game in Dortmund's half and there was even a controversial situation. The referee, Martin Petersen, whistled for Can's free kick on Akpobuma on the edge of the box. The VAR warned him because, if there had been a foul, it would have been inside the area. Petersen reviewed the images and, when everyone expected him to call a penalty, he concluded that there was no foul. Then the VAR was once again the protagonist by annulling a Dortmund goal, scored by Wolf, due to a previous foul by Schlotterbeck.
Little by little, the game turned into a two-way duel with chances in both areas and interventions by the two goalkeepers. In the end, not even Dortmund's second goal came, which had 25 shots on goal and many times crashed with a sensational Oliver Baumann, not the tie for Hoffenheim, which had a lot of arrivals in the second half.
In the end it was a duel between the goalkeepers, Kobel also had incredible saves, unbalanced by Brandt with his goal that represented Dortmund's ninth consecutive victory.
0 - Hoffenheim: Baumann; Zucchini (Bikakcic, 30), Vogt, Akpoguma; Rudy (Styles, 78); Kaderabek, Baumgartner, Tohumku (Dollberg, 65), Angeliño; Bebou (Asllani, 66), Kramaric.
1 - Borussia Dortmund: Kobel; Wolf, Süle, Schlotterbeck, Guerreiro; Can; Reus (Hummels, 88), Bellingkman; Brandt, Bynoe-Gittens (Paintings, 64); Haller (Özcan, 77).
Goles: 0-1 (min 43, Brandt),
Referee: Martin Petersen. Amonestó a Kabak, Bellingham, Vogt
Incidents: match of the twenty-second day of the Bundesliga played at the PreZero Arena in Sinsheim.
