After a tough start to their Matchday 6 meeting with RB Leipzig, Dortmund found themselves down 0-1 with less than 7 minutes transpired in the match. What seemed an ill-advised long ball into the box to a well-covered Assan Ouédraogo (3 BVB defenders), he somehow found a way to connect a solid header back into the middle of the box to a streaking and somehow wide open Baumgartner who simply pushed it in.
With Anton initially on Baumgartner and Svensson on Ouédraogo, both somehow lost their man in the midst of the run into the box. Yan Couto who was the furthest outside defender was on Nusa who played a decoy on the play more than anything to precisely spread out a defender as much as possible on him.
The Brazilian was the only one who had the play in front of him. Without excusing Svensson of simply letting go of Ouédraogo, Couto had more than enough time to make an adjustment after immediately realizing his man would in no way be involved in the play. However, Couto failed to jump in front of the German midfielder and the goal followed. A HUGE defensive blunder for a team chasing a league title.
Thankfully for Couto, his wait for redemption was short-lived. Better said, it was gifted to him by Willi Orbán who attempted some sort of impersonation of a clearance, but whiffed similar to that of a batter being fooled on a change-up. His mistake allowed the ball to get to Guirassy who assisted on Couto’s left-footed, deflected shot for the equalizer.
All things considered (RB Leipzig evening out ball possession as visitors, having 4 attempts on target to BVB’s 3, and clearly owning all of the match’s most dangerous opportunities), the draw wasn’t a bad result for Dortmund. They prevented The Red Bulls from rushing past them in the league table for 2nd place and are still a manageable 4 points behind Bayern - Dortmund’s next rival on Saturday, October 18. So technically, a victory there puts them right back in the race. The only downer is letting 2 points slip at home, but in all honesty, they were lucky Leipzig didn’t leave Signal Iduna Park with a victory.
All in all a close call for The Black and Yellow who cannot afford to let any more points get past them, especially not with the demolishing pace Bayern are on at the moment. But Couto is lucky they aren’t staring at a steeper climb with Leipzig in front of them.