A tale of two halves: The fallout from Borussia Dortmund’s win over Eintracht Frankfurt

What went right – Borussia Dortmund bounce back in second half, showing fight and resilience to grind out a result despite adversity

As the second half started, Borussia Dortmund’s game slowly began to change. They began to grow into the game, step by step building up to a similar intensity that they started it with. Dortmund managed to up the creativity, slowly overturning the tide of Frankfurt pressure that had stunned and pinned them back in the first half.

The first spark of Dortmund’s comeback came in the 70th minute. Thorgan Hazard was put on in place of Julian Brandt, who had a lackluster night out on the pitch. It was Hazard who ran onto a well placed Erling Haaland pass, found space between Frankfurt’s defenders and slipped through on goal before finding the back of the net.

Borussia Dortmund’s equaliser came in the 85th minute from a well placed cross by Thomas Meunier and a header from Jude Bellingham, who rose to the occasion to bring parity to the scoreline. The final goal came out of nowhere courtesy of Mo Dahoud just two minutes later. The midfielder found himself with the ball on the edge of the box. He created some space for himself and let fly past Kevin Trapp, completing an incredible comeback for his side.

What I find so interesting about this win is that, in the past, this was certainly a game that Dortmund would have let slip away once they were 2-0 down. Everyone expected them to fail despite Bayern Munich dropping points to Borussia Mönchengladbach, and it almost panned out that way.

But this Dortmund side, despite being leaky defensively, have a fight about them in more games than not. This I believe has been instilled by Marco Rose. Sporting Director Michael Zorc even commended Rose on his half time team talk, to which he gives credit for the team’s resurgence in the second half.

"“The win is good for us. The game showed us that we can turn around a two-goal deficit even against a good team like Frankfurt if we don’t get restless and keep believing in ourselves. We can draw a lot of positives from this… Marco [Rose] struck the right tone, he remained very calm, objective and analytical.” – Michael Zorc, Kicker"

Borussia Dortmund did the exact opposite of what most of us expected, and despite being far more uncomfortable than it had to be, this is certainly a game they will want to take notes from in terms of the way they approached it despite adversity.

Teams that continue to push for a result must grind out chances to pull through in the end, and when many speak of what has been missing in Dortmund recently, (aside from a healthy and stable defense, of course), they will point to this mentality to overcome tough situations.

While I don’t think this game automatically means Borussia Dortmund’s issues regarding their fight in matches where they are pegged back has fully changed, the result is a step in the right direction. It indicates that the team is growing and becoming more resilient in the face of challenges, and that will be an important building block for them going forward.

Bayern’s slip against Gladbach proves that they are not infallible, and while I won’t sit here and say the title race is 100% back on, I will say that Dortmund have to continue in this vein so that they can be there to take advantage of any other slips or stumbles should they occur. There are many games yet to play out this season, and the important thing for Dortmund this year will be to build a run of form that gives them the confidence to at least keep up with Bayern and not let the gap to top spot grow any farther. This was a decent first step in that direction.