Borussia Dortmund emerged victorious in the first of three back-to-back top-of-the-table clashes. After beating fourth-placed SC Freiburg, the Black & Yellows next face third-placed TSG Hoffenheim and then fifth-placed Bayer Leverkusen, with a cup tie away to Bundesliga 2 leaders FC St. Pauli sandwiched between the two league fixtures.

"We've made a positive step. Now we have to transfer that onto the pitch in the long term. We have the quality to put in good performances," said Marco Rose after the comfortable and well-deserved 5-1 win over Freiburg. "It felt like BVB had an extra player on their side," said Sportclub captain Christian Günter after what proved to be a one-sided match, especially in the first half. "Dortmund are extremely good at counter-pressing and put you under a lot of pressure,'' said Freiburg striker Lucas Höler.

The scoreboard read 3-0 at the break after Erling Haaland's goal resulting from counter-pressing (45+1) and two headers from Thomas Meunier, both from corners (14/19). "Set-pieces aren't something we just started working on yesterday," said designated corner taker Julian Brandt: "For a while we weren't having much success from corners. But of course we have set procedures and we always have a think about what we're going to do at each set-piece. There are target zones that you want to hit. But it was a bit unusual that the ball landed on Thomas's head twice." The last time BVB scored two goals from corners in a Bundesliga match was more than seven years ago, in a 3-2 win away to Augsburg on 29 August 2014. 

"In the first-half it was a top performance in all aspects of play - both with and without the ball," said Rose, going on to add: "In the second half, we needlessly gave them a route back into the game by conceding a goal. After Demirovic pulled one back for Freiburg, the visitors briefly had their tails up before Haaland netted again to open up a 4-1 lead for Borussia. Mo Dahoud was instrumental in ending any hopes of a Freiburg comeback by providing an assist for Haaland and then popping up with a late goal of his own. For the fourth goal, the Germany international did the hard part in winning the ball in midfield. The easy part was setting up Haaland to score: ''It's nice and simple to play in Erling. All you have to do is get the timing right.''

Dahoud has now managed to score in two consecutive matches for the first time in his career. Last week, he grabbed the winning goal to clinch a 3-2 victory in Frankfurt and yesterday he scored the final goal to put the icing on a 5-1 win. "I have to thank Nico Schulz for the fantastic assist. Not everyone plays that pass in a situation like that." The 26-year-old seemed to find the decision of how to celebrate harder than the act of finding the back of the net: "That's not a strong point of mine as I don't score that many goals."

Two games, two wins and thus six points to start the second half of the season. "Overall it was a very good game, though the goal we conceded is a bit annoying," said Julian Brandt. His boss found similar words: "Five goals sounds good, but we would have liked to have avoided the goal we conceded." He then added: "Now we are within three points tonight. It's so important that we gain consistency, that we deliver good results," said Rose, who is not focusing on the competition, be it the direct opponents (Freiburg, Hoffenheim, Leverkusen) or the league leaders. His goal for the team: "Focus on ourselves in order to improve.''
Boris Rupert