Christian Pulisic’s brace helps Borussia Dortmund stun Liverpool
Borussia Dortmund beat Liverpool thanks to a brace and assist from Christian Pulisic in the second game of the International Champions Cup.
Jurgen Klopp had selected a fairly strong team going into this game. Lucien Favre, on the other hand, gave plenty of opportunities to young and inexperienced players such as Amos Pieper, Dzenis Burnic, and Soren Dieckmann to name a few. Borussia Dortmund did not make a full team rotation at the halfway mark unlike against Manchester City two days ago.
If you watched the first 89 minutes of the game then the last thing you would have expected was for Dortmund to come out on top. The Black and Yellows never really got ahold of the game. They struggled to find a rhythm throughout the game.
Dortmund got off to a flying start by getting forward but just failed in executing anything in the final third. The first bit of action came with a Karius blunder which almost saw Maximillian Phillip score from the halfway line. Dortmund then continued to enjoy a solid amount of possession in the first half but found themselves trailing after poor defending which led to Van Dijk scoring a free header.
No one made any threatening moves in the first half from Dortmund including Jadon Sancho who had a fiery game against Manchester City. Dortmund made nine changes at halftime which saw notable names such as Mario Gotze and game changer Christian Pulisic come on. But the second half started very poorly for Dortmund and they could have easily have let in two or three goals.
As Dortmund failed to maintain a rhythm, Klopp’s men started toying with the Black and Yellows by easily bringing men forward and commencing attacks. Dortmund hardly managed to make it out of their own half let alone hold off constant Liverpool pressure. But what Liverpool did well which Dortmund handled quite nicely was Liverpool’s off the ball pressing.
Liverpool constantly pressed trying to regain possession and force an error but Dortmund handled it to perfection. There were times when the players were being constantly pressed but remained calm and saw it through. Despite Liverpool’s dominance, Borussia Dortmund won a penalty after Milner and Ragnar Klavan brought down Christian Pulisic in the box. The American wonderkid took the ball from Gotze and converted from the spot with a nice shot down the middle to equalize.
In the dying moments of the game, Liverpool must have thought that a draw is on the cards. But a brilliant counter-attack from Dortmund saw Pulisic strike the ball from the edge of the box past Karius and into the bottom corner to give Dortmund the lead. But it wasn’t over there. Pulisic again made a brilliant run into the penalty area and saw his shot saved and deflected by Karius only to find Jacob Brunn Larson who tapped it home.
The win helped Dortmund maintain their 100% record under Lucien Favre so far. Despite not being at their best, the Black and Yellows managed to get a good win which will give them plenty of confidence ahead of the new season.