The Black and Yellows returned to Dortmund early on Thursday afternoon having picked up a point away to Greek outfit PAOK Saloniki and defended their lead at the top of UEFA Europa League Group C. Hopefully two victories in their upcoming double-header with Azerbaijan's Gabala FC will secure the club's qualification for the knock-out stages of the competition, as PAOK Saloniki and FC Krasnodar - their two rivals for top spot in the pool - take points off each other on matchdays 3 and 4.

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Joo-Ho Park narrowly missed a chance to score in the dying seconds.

There are several reasons behind Borussia Dortmund's failure to beat PAOK Saloniki despite dominating Thursday evening's match. On the one hand, they were unable to penetrate the Greeks' defence until the 70th minute. It would be unfair to expect a team containing eight changes who had never played together in this formation before to produce total accuracy in their passing movements. And it would have required inch-perfect passes on the poor-quality pitch at the Toumba Stadium in Thessaloniki to create more clear-cut chances against an extremely compact opponent entirely focused on defending their own goal. "We are a team that really likes to play, so this pitch didn't do us any favours," remarked shot-stopper Roman Weidenfeller.

On the other hand, Borussia conceded an unnecessary goal once again. "It's annoying that the opponent's first shot ended up going in again," said Weidenfeller, before adding: "At half-time the coach encouraged us to keep going." Thomas Tuchel was very satisfied with the performance he witnessed. "Above all, I am happy with the performance. It has been such good fun to coach this team and watch them play like that," he said.

"We didn't expect to finish the group with 18 points"

Nobody was dissatisfied with the result. "We won a point here," said Weidenfeller. For Hans-Joachim Watzke, it was a "highly-deserved 1-1 draw. We can live with that. We are rotating and it wasn't our objective or our expectation to finish the group with 18 points. Four points after two games is okay." Sporting director Michael Zorc remarked: "It was a very decent performance by a rejigged team."

The fact that they were hoping to take all three points rather than one speaks volumes for the ambition in the squad. "We dominated our opponent. There could have been a bit more in it for us," commented Sven Bender. Goalscorer Gonzalo Castro said: "We are annoyed at having dropped two points. There are days when you don't get that little bit of luck. But we can be very satisfied with our performance. With the quality that we have, we want to win the group."

Boris Rupert