Borussia Dortmund 0-3 Juventus
Scorers: Tevez 3, 79 (J), Morata 71 (J)
Champions League – Round of 16 – 2nd Leg [Wednesday, 18th March – 19:45 GMT] – Westfalenstadion
That went about as well as any Juventino could have hoped it would. Juventus went to Westfalenstadion and came away with a 3-0 victory courtesy of a Carlos Tevez doppietta and an additional goal from Alvaro Morata. Juventus outclassed Borussia Dortmund completely, even though on many occasions Dortmund had spells of possession, they only had one shot on goal in the whole match. This was a Juventus in top form, easily handling an experienced – though to be fair, struggling – Champions League side.
The game started perfectly, with Carlos Tevez essentially wrapping up the entire fixture in the third minute. His solo effort completely beat Dortmund keeper Roman Weidenfeller, who had a stinker today. Aside from saving two dangerous efforts from Morata, Weidenfeller was pretty terrible for Dortmund. Stephan Lichtsteiner even forced a save – and corner kick – with a shot from distance that Weidenfeller barely saved.
Everything was working perfectly for Juventus through the first 25th minute. Then, tragedy struck. Paul Pogba and Sokratis Papastathopoulos got into a 50-50 challenge, and Pogba went down clutching his right hamstring. He would come off seconds later, with Andrea Barzagli coming on. This meant Juve switched from a 4-3-1-2 to a 3-5-2. Stay posted to JuveFC.com and @Juvefcdotcom on Twitter for updates on Pogba.
Still, even the loss of Pogba couldn’t slow down Juventus. Juve did allow Dortmund to keep possession a bit more after Pogba went down, at least for the rest of the first half. Still, even when Dortmund had the ball in Juve’s half, they weren’t able to break down Juve’s defense at all. The entire Juventus side defended well as a unit, and Dortmund, for all of their skilled attacking players, really didn’t create anything.
The second half started the same way the first ended, Dortmund would try to keep the ball in Juve’s half, and they would do so without making much forward progress. Then Juventus would counter or have their own run of possession.
Roberto Pereyra almost created some magic in the 59th minute with a beautiful dribbling run through Dortmund’s half. Unfortunately, he played the ball to Morata a bit too late, so Morata had less of a dangerous angle on his shot, and it was saved.
Throughout this time period, Juventus players were breaking or nearly breaking Dortmund’s offside trap, and exploiting their very high defensive line. This was the source of Morata’s two saved efforts, and Juve’s second goal.
Claudio Marchisio fed Teves the ball, seeing Tevez could break the offside trap. Tevez also had Morata making a run in the center of the penalty box, so Tevez fed Morata the ball. Morata tapped in the ball from point blank range and Juve were up 2-0.
From there, Juventus were able to control the game as Dortmund basically lost their will. Nine minutes later, Roberto Pereyra found Carlos Tevez in front of goal, and Tevez scored Juve’s third and final goal. Tevez had two goals, and Juventus had undoubtedly proven their superiority to Dortmund.
It was a real masterclass performance from Juventus, everything went according to plan. Arturo Vidal played like his old world-beating self, Claudio Marchisio was excellent as a regista, and the wide players were phenomenal and added serious depth to Juve’s attack as well. Finally, the defense just suffocated Dortmund’s attack, allowing them no space or dangerous opportunities to score.
Friday is the draw for the quarter-finals, so we will know then who Juve faces next in the Champions League. For now, enjoy the big victory. We’re back in the top eight of Europe.
Statistics:
Man of the Match: Carlos Tevez
Flop of the Match: N/A
Fouls: 10
Corners: 4
Pass Accuracy: 84%
Shots on Target: 6
Total Shots: 11
Ball Possession: 46%
Formation: 4-3-1-2
Formation:
Lineups:
Borussia Dortmund: Weidenfeller; Sokratis, Subotic, Hummels, Schmelzer (Kirch 46); Bender (Ramos 64), Gündogan; Kampl, Mkhitaryan (Blaszczykowski 64), Reus; Aubameyang
Juventus: Buffon; Lichtsteiner, Bonucci, Chiellini, Evra; Vidal, Marchisio, Pogba (Barzagli 27); Pereyra; Tevez (Pepe 82), Morata (Matri 78)
Ref: Mazic (SRB)
Poll:
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Perfect performance, defensively we were a brick wall and on the counter we looked SO dangerous. Morata and Tevez are looking more dangerous every match and the work rate to close down the spaces when Dortmund switched play was brilliant, but the downside was Pogba will be out for two moths. This is a very big statement to europe.