Borussia Dortmund, on their way back from their training camp in La Manga, fulfilled an invitation to play against 1FC Kaiserslautern and duly won a friendly courtesy of goals from Reus, Kuba and Lewandowski, 3-10 (1-1).

 

Boris Rupert reports from Kaiserslautern

In this, the third friendly ahead of the second half of the season Jürgen Klopp had to do without the services of not only Mats Hummels and Neven Subotic but also Kevin Großkreutz (stomach bug), Ilkay Gündogan and Oliver Kirch. In a first half sorely missing any real passion or goal-threatening situations, the hosts were possibly the better team in front of an impressive 33,000 fans on the Betzenberg. It was all too clear how much hard training the BVB boys had done in La Manga. The game was generally slow, and the passing unimpressive.

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Marco Reus scores from the spot

However, Klopp’s less than chuffed demeanour on the bench had less to do with the patchy game, but more to do with the fact that Sokratis had required lengthy treatment following a more than robust challenge from Matmour. Happily the Greek was able to play on and was duly involved in the best passage of play that saw his pass find Durm wide left; Durm in turn played in Mkhitaryan who had his legs taken away by Orban in the box affording Reus the chance to open the scoring from the penalty spot.

BVB remained, despite this, pretty rudderless and thus allowed the home side the chance to probe gaps which eventually led to them equalising when a cross from Gaus eluded Weidenfeller and floated into the back of the net to make it 1-1 on 32 minutes.

Only Weidenfeller, Durm and Sahin emerged following the break from the starting eleven with Durm now occupying the right back slot. With Schieber now occupying the play-making role it wasn’t long before Kuba, with a lovely shot, offered a BVB threat on 54 minutes and then Lewandowski (courtesy of fine work by Schmelzer and Schieber) offered hope of better.

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The wall blocks a Reus free-kick

The final half hour was the best of the game with Ring and Ocean going close for the home side whie, at the other end, BVB went about making the most of their opportunities as first Kuba, played in by Lewandowski made it 2-1 on 77 minutes, and then the Pole, benefitting from a Kuba pass, rounded off the scoring on 81 minutes.

This Tuesday sees BVB playing their last friendly against before Saturday’s game against Augsburg when they take on Duisburg (kick off 1930CET). Jürgen Klopp sees the game as a chance to help line the coffers of a neighbouring club whilst affording his team the chance to rev up ahead of the Bundesliga start.

BVB 1st half: Weidenfeller – Piszczek, Günter, Sarr, Durm – Sahin, Kehl – Hofmann, Mkhitaryan, Reus – Ducksch.
BVB 2nd half: Weidenfeller – Durm, Friedrich, Sarr, Schmelzer – Sahin (71. Jordanov), Bender – Blaszczykowski, Schieber, Aubameyang - Lewandowski
Goals: 0:1 Reus (28., penalty), 1:1 Gaus (32.), 1:2 Blaszczykowski (77.), 1:3 Lewandowski (81.)
Attendance: 33.717