On the second evening of the new Champions League, three clubs made headlines: Borussia Dortmund with three late goals from substitutes, Celtic Glasgow with two game-deciders with experience in Germany and Sparta Prague with its first victory in a Champions League game in 21 years. In two weeks, Dortmund will play against Glasgow – and Prague will be guests at VfB Stuttgart.
109 days after losing the Champions League final in London (0:2 against Real Madrid), Borussia Dortmund struggled to get back into the premier class. The game against Belgian champions FC Bruges? “Tough,” said Julian Brandt. “Sluggish,” said Emre Can. Not much happened until the 76th minute, but then one man played the joker role as perfectly as he had on the first Bundesliga matchday in the 2:0 win against Eintracht Frankfurt: the 20-year-old Brit Jamie Gittens.
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Back then, Gittens came on as a substitute in the 59th minute and scored against Frankfurt in the 72nd and 93rd minutes to make it 2-0. This time, Gittens came on as a substitute in the 68th minute and scored in the 76th and 86th minutes to give Bruges a 2-0 lead, which Serhou Guirassy, who also came on as a substitute, made it 3-0 in the 95th minute with a penalty he himself won. “That wasn’t exactly a top performance from us,” admitted captain Can. “Sometimes you just need a bit of patience in football,” Brandt reassured.
Gittens claimed that he had already spotted certain spaces in the high Bruges defence from outside. He then moved twice from the left into the centre, his first shot was fortunately deflected twice and his second went straight into the net. New signing Guirassy finished with his debut goal for BVB. Dortmund’s next Champions League game is on October 1st against Celtic Glasgow. The Scots are even ahead of Borussia in this new Champions League table, which with 36 teams is probably the longest football table in the world.
At Celtic, old rocker Rod Stewart cheers in the stands
The 5-1 victory of Scottish champions Celtic Glasgow against Slovakian champions Slovan Bratislava was dominated by players who had previously played in Germany. Belgian Arne Engels, 21, who played for FC Augsburg last season and was sold to Glasgow for eleven million euros at the end of August, provided the assist for the 1-0 goal (17th, Liam Scales) and scored the 3-0 goal himself from the penalty spot (56th). 24-year-old Nicolas Kühn from Wunstorf, who has played for FC St. Pauli, Hannover 96, RB Leipzig, Bayern Munich II and Erzgebirge Aue, set up Kyogo Furuhashi for the 2-0 goal (47th).
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Bratislava’s consolation goal to make it 1:3 (60th minute) was scored by Kevin Wimmer, a 31-year-old Austrian who has played for 1. FC Köln, Hannover 96 and Karlsruher SC. Celtic’s Japanese 4:1 scorer Daizen Maeda (70th minute) and Irish 5:1 scorer Adam Idah (86th minute) have never played for a German club. But that didn’t matter to old rocker Rod Stewart, who was cheering in the stands. On October 1st, Celtic will play in Germany’s biggest stadium: Dortmund. There they can count on a similarly fanatical atmosphere as in their Celtic Park – but this time it will be in favor of BVB.
Sparta Prague already has respect for Stuttgart
When Sparta Prague played its last Champions League match at the end of 2005, Tomas Rosicky was playing for Borussia Dortmund. The Prague native is now 43 years old and has been Sparta’s sporting director for six years. On Wednesday evening, Rosicky sat in a box at the Letna Stadium and saw his hometown club win its first Champions League match in 19 years with a surprisingly clear 3-0 victory against RB Salzburg. The Austrians were a disappointment across the board.
After 108 seconds, the Finn Kaan Kairinen scored the 1-0 for Prague. In the 42nd minute, the Nigerian Victor Olatunji made it 2-0. In the 58th minute, the Albanian Qazim Laci made it 3-0. It was Sparta’s first victory in a Champions League match since the end of 2003. For the Czech champions, who had to fight through the qualification in the summer, it was the 14th competitive match this season since mid-July. At the beginning of July, the Dane Lars Friis, 48, was promoted from assistant coach to head coach after two years.
The Spartans will play their 17th competitive game of the season in Stuttgart on October 1. “I saw Stuttgart against Real Madrid,” said Friis on Wednesday evening, “they were great, it will be a very difficult game for us.”