Borussia Dortmund slumped to a 2-0 loss to Inter Milan in their final game of the league phase in the 2025-26 UEFA Champions League, as Niko Kovac's side must now play a two-legged playoffs to reach the round of 16.
Late goals from Federico Dimarco and Andy Diouf broke the home side's resistance in the closing stages, condemning them to their second consecutive defeat in the competition and a third of the round.
Despite so much talent on display, and their recent history of having reached the Champions League finals, the match between Dortmund and Inter was a cagey affair with chances coming at a premium.
In the 80th minute, the Nerazzurri won a free-kick which Dimarco dispatched to finally break the deadlock before a mistake from Karim Adeyemi allowed substitute Diouf to bag a second in stoppage-time.
With only 11 points from eight games, Der BVB finished in 17th place of the league phase and will be heading into the playoffs, where ironically, even Inter have qualified for, although the Serie A giants are in the seeded column.
Dortmund sorely lacked attacking flair
Just like in their 2-0 loss to Tottenham Hotspur a few weeks ago, Dortmund were once again below-par offensively as they rarely threatened Inter goalkeeper Yann Sommer.
Serhou Guirassy got the first chance of the match as the striker came into possession from a corner and was completely unmarked, but contrived to fire his shot straight at Sommer.
Once again, most of Dortmund's chances only came from set-pieces as their forwards struggled to carve Inter open from open-play and were limited to just two shots on target.
Inter turned the screw on Dortmund in final 10 minutes
The final 10 minutes were as frantic as the prevous 80 minutes were lethargic. And it took just one free-kick for that to happen, as Dimarco clinically nestled the ball into the top corner for 1-0.
Thereon, the Nerazzurri seemed to be in control as they held the ball more and drove forward, mounting pressure on their toothless hosts, who only sought to hit them on the break.
During one such attempt, Adeyemi lost the ball in midfield, allowing Diouf to calmly slot beyond Kobel in the 94th minute and consolidate their victory.
While the win wasn't enough to send Inter Milan directly into the last-16, they would still be in the seeded pot for the playoffs draw and could get an easy draw.
But for Dortmund, a tough two-legged affair awaits against one of Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen. It's worth noting that Leverkusen had beaten Dortmund in the DFB-Pokal a few weeks ago, while Atlanta are a formidable side on their day, having beaten Chelsea in the league phase too.