Borussia Dortmund's first away trip for a competitive match this season came to an end in the early hours of the morning as the team bus, which had to pick the squad up from Paderborn due to the prohibition on night-time landings in Dortmund, dropped the players off at 3:31 CET.

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Thomas Tuchel

Coach Thomas Tuchel went home largely impressed by his team's performance in the south of Austria, although his charges did falter late on in the first leg of their UEFA Europa League qualifier against Wolfsberger AC - an unknown quantity in European competition ranked 234th in the UEFA club ranking list. "I'm delighted that we saw them off and defended with the required passion and the required luck. And with the fact that we didn't try to play beautiful football, but really gave as good as we got," he said.

Having dominated the match in the opening hour, BVB could have claimed victory by a larger margin but ultimately almost squandered their lead in the closing stages. "Sometimes such victories, such experiences and such obstacles that you really have to fight to overcome are more important than a match that is easy from the start, you get a quick goal and run out 3-0 winners," said Tuchel, who saw his team "take a big step towards full competitive strength". He added: "Four days after a training camp is a critical time to play such a match." He spoke of the balance a team needs to find between "high intensity in training" and "a certain level of freshness" that is required for a match. The coach was referring to the fact that Mats Hummels was the only player to complete 90 minutes in Borussia Dortmund's pre-season friendlies. "The most that anyone else managed was 60," he said.

The fact that Wolfsburg dominated the final half an hour was therefore hardly surprising, especially given the condition of the pitch. "Every turn required energy. You could see it in our game," said Tuchel, before continuing: "But it wasn't the first football match that's caused a scare after a team failed to kill the game off."

Although the advantage is with Borussia Dortmund for the return leg next Thursday, this third round qualifier is far from over. Equally, the Black and Yellows' line-up in the Wörthersee Stadium represented "no definitive indication of who is where in the pecking order," emphasised Tuchel.

In the seven days leading up to the return leg "we desperately need to work on our defending when the opposition have set-pieces," said the coach, who gave his team one final message to take home with them: "We need to pay more attention and show more aggression at dead balls!"

Boris Rupert