It was an emotional evening at the Rote Erde Stadium as Neven Subotic marked his comeback after 252 days out with injury by scoring an 86th-minute winner for Borussia Dortmund II to snatch a 1-0 (0-0) victory over SV Rödinghausen in the Regional League.

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"It was an even game. Our positional play was poor. Overall we didn't really find the right balance," said BVB coach Daniel Farke, who added: "Rödinghausen defended excellently, but we remained patient."

Though a ninth win of the season was not enough to lift BVB II from third (34 points), they are now only four points behind Viktoria Köln, who lead the way on 38, followed by Borussia Mönchengladbach II on 36. However, both Köln and Gladbach have played one match more than Dortmund.

It was a night of firsts against Rödingausen: Jan-Pascal Reckert kept goal for the first time following Hendrik Bonmann's temporary promotion to the first team; Neven Subotic replaced the suspended Christoph Zimmermann at the heart of defence on his comeback after 252 days out; and left winger Jonas Arweiler made the starting XI for the first time.

The Black and Yellows struggled against a resolute SVR side, creating little more than half-chances following set-pieces with Subotic twice missing the visitors' goal, before Massih Wassey's long-range effort was comfortably saved by Rödinghausen shot-stopper Tim Paterok (36). The best chance of the opening half fell to SVR frontman Abu Bakarr Kargbo a mere 120 seconds after kick-off, but he was denied by Reckert's excellent reactions.

After the interval Farke switched to three at the back (Mainka, Subotic and Dietz) but the problems remained; Borussia continued to lack creative ideas, while Rödinghausen increasingly relied on counter-attacks.

Daniel Farke introduced David Sauerland and Moritz Fritz with ten minutes remaining, before fate intervened. Following a Wassey corner, Subotic shot from close range to put BVB II 1-0 ahead (86) and provide an emotional ending to a low-quality encounter.

BVB II: Reckert - Camoglu, Subotic, Mainka, Dietz - Karazor (Sauerland, 79) - Arweiler (Fritz, 79), Wassey (Schumacher, 90+1), Eberwein, Dieckmann - Al Ghaddioui
Goal: 1-0 (Subotic, 86)
Attendance: 987
Florian Groeger