Dortmund close gap on Bundesliga leaders Bayern with win at Wolfsburg

Updated: May 17, 2023, 06:08 am
Shinji Kagawa's late goal for Borussia Dortmund closed the gap on Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich to five points.
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Borussia Dortmund reduced the gap on Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich to five points by becoming the first side to beat Wolfsburg on their own turf since March 2014.

Marco Reus' goal put Dortmund in front, but it took a last-gasp Shinji Kagawa goal for them to gain revenge for defeat in last June's DFB-Pokal final with a 2-1 win at the Volkswagen Arena.

Wolfsburg thought they had snatched a point when Ricardo Rodriguez levelled from the penalty spot only seconds before Kagawa's winner.

Thomas Tuchel's men therefore took full advantage of Bayern's first defeat of the season to re-open the title race and deny the Bavarians the chance of celebrating the unofficial title of autumn champions with two games to spare before the winter break.

Undoubtedly motivated by the news of Bayern first defeat of the season, Dortmund had the crossbar rattling twice inside the first five minutes.

Ilkay Gundogan was first with a direct free kick which had Diego Benaglio beaten. Sven Bender was next, meeting Henrikh Mkhitaryan's cross at the near post and, with Benaglio beaten again, struck against the woodwork from close range.

Naldo lifted Lukasz Piszczek's cross over his own crossbar as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang loomed in wait for his 18th goal of the season, although the offside flag would have denied the Gabon international anyway.

Having weathered the early storm, Wolfsburg started to do some attacking of their own, although Andre Schurrle's tame effort wide was the best they could show before they fell behind after just over half an hour.

Marco Reus opened the scoring for Dortmund on Saturday.
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Josuha Guilavogui was robbed of possession by Mkhitaryan, who sent Reus through with only Benaglio to beat, and after skipping past the Swiss keeper, he slotted in his ninth goal of the season.

Naldo's header was cleared off the line by Mkhitaryan as the Wolves ended the first half strongly, continuing to attack in the second half.

Former Schalke midfielder Julian Draxler danced his way through the Dortmund defence only to be denied by Roman Burki, who also made himself big to deny half-time substitute Bas Dost on the hour mark, after he had gifted the Dutch forward the ball.

Draxler was again denied by Burki as the pressure mounted on the Dortmund goal, and Rodriguez flashed a long-range effort just wide of his compatriot's post.

Bender made an acrobatic clearance off his own goal line from Vieirinha's header as Dortmund resisted the Wolfsburg onslaught.

The hosts then appeared to run out of steam as their guests managed to get a foot on the ball for a more prolonged period of time, even venturing into the other half of the field at times before, with the last minute of the game already started, Wolfsburg earned a penalty.

Piszczek was adjudged to have given Schurrle a shove in the back and Rodriguez beat Burki from the spot to bring Wolfsburg level.

Wolfsburg thought they had done enough for a point, but there were still a few minutes of stoppage time to go and Kagawa had other ideas as he popped up to net Dortmund's second and earn them the first win in Wolfsburg since Bayern thrashed the Wolves 6-1 back in March 2014.