Borussia Dortmund park the bus to come away with a 1-1 draw against Bayer Leverkusen
By Tushar Bahl
It certainly didn't make for pleasant viewing, but Borussia Dortmund put in another resilient defensive performance to put an end to Bayer Leverkusen's winning run. The Bundesliga leaders needed a late equaliser from Victor Boniface to rescue a point after Julian Ryerson had given the Black and Yellows the lead.
Despite being limited to just 31% possession, Borussia Dortmund managed to frustrate their in-form opponents for much of the game. Mats Hummels led the back-line brilliantly, as Edin Terzic's defensive tactics worked to great effect. But Leverkusen still found a way to get a point and maintain their ten point lead over BVB.
Borussia Dortmund enjoyed a dream start to the game and took the lead in the sixth minute, with Julian Ryerson firing past Lukas Hradecky after some excellent hold-up play in the build-up from Niclas Füllkrug.
The early goal allowed the away side to sit deep and look for openings on the counter-attack. And while attacking opportunities were few and far in between, BVB's compact defending helped them keep Leverkusen quiet for much of the first-half.
Florian Wirtz did have the ball in the back of the net for Leverkusen on the stroke of half-time. But Victor Boniface was deemed to be offside in the build-up, allowing Edin Terzic's side to take a narrow lead into the break.
The story of the second-half was more of the same, with Leverkusen attacking at will and Borussia Dortmund struggling to get out of their own half.
BVB's hopes of hanging on to their lead suffered a blow at the hour mark, as Nico Schlotterbeck was forced to come off with a muscle issue. Meanwhile, Leverkusen brought on Patrik Schick to add further firepower to their attack. And the Czech forward made an instant impact, as he teed up Boniface for the equalising goal.
Leverkusen continued to dominate and looked the more likely of the two sides to find a winner. Although Füllkrug had an opportunity to seal an improable win at the death for BVB, but he fired his header over the bar.
Borussia Dortmund can take plenty of positives from this result, even if the defensive-minded performance left a lot to be desired. They remain ten points behind Bayer Leverkusen, and will be in DFB-Pokal action next on Wednesday against VfB Stuttgart.