It was a successful start. Only for the 11th time, but already for the second time under Jürgen Klopp, BVB registered a win in their opening game of the Bundesliga season. And Borussia Dortmund´s 1-0 victory over Cologne in the 101st West derby was more comfortably than the result suggests. "Mondragon kept us in the game for a long time," said Cologne coach Zvonimir Soldo about his goalkeeper, who denied the Dortmund players a goal and was only beaten by his team-mate Marvin Matip after Tinga had headed the ball on.

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Celebrating the goal: Hajnal, who took the free-kick, and Tinga, who headed the ball on (in the background: Owomoyela).

"He made some very, very fine saves," said Hans-Joachim Watzke - and was glad that BVB walked away with the win. "I´m very pleased that we won, that we put in a good performance and entertained the fans," said the chairman of the board. "We could have scored one or two more, but overall the team put into practice what we wanted them to do. It was alright."
After 41 days of pre-season Jürgen Klopp was also "relieved about the way we played football. It was really good." With the exception of the "middle third" where BVB created four good chances, the first half was pretty uneventful. Cologne are mainly to blame for that as they defended with everything they had by installing a back five in front of their back four, only to limit the space, destroy the flow of the game and take the pace out of the game.
Cologne "made life very difficult for us," admitted Klopp, "but we stayed patient and created one chance after the other. We deserved to win due to our power play after the break."