BVB's super start sets confident tone for the season

This was not the only positive that Borussia Dortmund were able to draw from the duel in the automotive city. "I am very satisfied. 3-0 In Wolfsburg is a great result! Overall, it was a very good team performance", stressed Peter Bosz, who nonetheless gave special praise, on being asked by a reporter, to two of his charges. One of course was Christian Pulisic, whose stellar performance was also clearly visible to the BVB manager. "Christian Pulisic is still very young, and did very well today – not only because of his goal. He was all over the pitch, created lots of dangerous situations, and played very well", said Bosz.

Götze is pleased, but remains realistic 

Ultimately it proved that the absence of the injured Schürrle and the still suspended Dembélé was not to be of consequence. Pulisic played scintillatingly, repeatedly running rings around the Wolfsburg defence and masterfully setting up Aubameyang to give BVB a 3-0 win. Of course, he had already demonstrated his quality by this point in the match. He scored the first goal while under pressure from two Wolfsburg men, with excellent footwork to get through both opposition players. "We seek to exert a lot of pressure, press very early, and play at a high tempo. That suits me and my game very well", said a satisfied Pulisic after the match. "Ultimately that meant I got a goal and an assist today. I'm really pleased about that of course."

Mario Götze provided the assist for Pulisic's goal, and Götze also made a vital contribution to the build up play which led to Marc Bartra's goal for 2-0, feeding Castro as he did with the ball which Castro sent on to provide the assist. Götze was the second player that Peter Bosz gave special credit to: "Mario Götze is a similarly brilliant player. Mario has been out for a long time, and so we need to be patient. It is important that he remains healthy. You could see his quality again today, though", said Bosz of the World Cup winner, whose pre-season performances were repeatedly very promising.

The way he ran with the ball on occasion through the midfield and his awareness of his teammates' position evoked memories of those times prior to his diagnosis with a metabolic illness, before he transferred to FC Bayern, when Götze as a young player at Dortmund was developing into a key player, and who celebrated two title victories and a Cup win with BVB. One passage of play worth dwelling on is, for example, the build up to Pulisic's opening goal, as Götze quickly controlled the rebound emanating from the Wolves' defence before quickly passing it on to his unmarked colleague, who converted the opportunity into the 1-0 lead. "We played a great game", noted Götze joyfully after the match, but was careful to appraise the performance within a realistic context: "We know that there still lies a long path before us. It was only the first, small step along this."

Top of the table after matchday one

That his comeback would also be pleasing for one of his opponents had probably only been anticipated by very few. "That made me really very happy", was how Mario Gomez described the moment when he saw that Götze would start. "I have of course already said that I will never forget the day he joined up with the national team for the first time. I though to myself then, 'Whoa, what a player we have here'. I hope he will again be able to play with the freedom he played with back then."

Borussia Dortmund can, then, draw an almost entirely positive conclusion from the first matchday. Nonetheless, reining in the euphoria a little bit is still the right thing to do. Overall, VfL Wolfsburg represented at no time during the encounter an opposition of equal strength. Glaring weaknesses in the Wolves' defence were abundantly clear. Despite that, BVB seems to be the team that radiated the greatest confidence at the beginning of the new season. Only the Bavarians and maybe their rivals from Gelsenkirchen could match them in that regard, albeit with some clear deficiencies. But even though their position at the top of the table, which they could still lose on Sunday afternoon, is yet to be consolidated, the performance in Wolfsburg has certainly given cause to be confident that the 2017/18 season will hopefully be a successful one.
Dennis-Julian Gottschlich