Borussia Dortmund vs Hoffenheim: Key Takeaways

Borussia Dortmund faced an in form Hoffenheim side this past Friday at the PreZero Arena, and goals from Niclas Füllkrug, Marco Reus and Julian Ryerson assured that they walked away with a 3-1 win.

Borussia Dortmund’s 2023/24 Bundesliga season continued on Friday with Hoffenheim their opponents on the night. The Sinsheim side came into the game as one of the league’s more in-form sides, which made for a very stern test for Die Schwarzgelben.

Games against Hoffenheim have often proven difficult for the black and yellows, and despite the Ruhr side getting the better of Hoffenheim in most of their meetings over the last few years, the games between these two sides have always been hard fought, with this encounter proving to be no different. Dortmund opened the scoring via Niclas Füllkrug, to which Hoffenheim responded in kind through an Andrej Kramarić penalty. Marco Reus would follow up with Dortmund’s second, and it would take until the dying embers of the second half for Julian Ryerson to put it beyond doubts for his side.

Dortmund’s 3-1 was, as we’ve mentioned, a hard fought three points, particularly due to the fact that Ramy Bensebaini earned himself red card after picking up 2 consecutive yellows. Unnecessarily kicking the ball away from the opposition to waste time cost his team more than it cost Hoffenheim in terms of time to come back, but his teammates were able to rally and put together what likely was their best performance this season. Let take a look at some of the key takeaways from the game.