A crowd of 529 at Stadion Rote Erde saw Borussia Dortmund's U23s round off the year with a comfortable 3-1 victory over FSV Zwickau. Goals from Immanuel Pherai, Franz Pfanne and Berkan Taz saw the Black & Yellows rise up to seventh ahead of the winter break.

The opposition: The Swans had lost only one of their previous 10 league matches – but had drawn six times during that run. With 11 stalemates already this term, FSV Zwickau are the draw specialists of the 3. Liga. Coach Joe Enochs' charges had suffered only four league defeats all season heading into this round of fixtures and sat in 13th place in the table with 23 points on the board prior to kick-off. This Wednesday gone, FSV had battled their way to a 1-1 draw with league leaders and promotion favourites Magdeburg.

Personnel matters: Jan-Pascal Reckert lined up between the sticks for the Dortmund U23s for his first competitive game in over two years. The 24-year-old has been with BVB since 2011 and is the longest-serving member of the U23 squad. The suspended Richmond Tachie was replaced by Ted Tattermusch at centre-forward. Having served his ban for an accumulation of yellow cards, Antonios Papadopoulos returned in place of Marco Hober.

The match & analysis: The Black & Yellows dominated the opening minutes on a poor-quality pitch. Ted Tattermusch missed an Immanuel Pherai cross by centimetres (2) and Berkan Taz was denied by visiting goalkeeper Brinkies in a one-on-one (3). Zwickau's best chance of the opening stages fell to Luca Horn in the 10th minute, but his header from a corner struck the upright.

The agile Taz tested visiting shot-stopper Brinkies from range on the 20-minute mark, but both that attempt and Ole Pohlmann's effort a few minutes later were cleared behind for a corner. However, the opener eventually came a minute later through Immanuel Pherai, who finished off a lovely move involving Berkan Taz and Tobi Raschl with a finish from close range to make it 1-0.

The Black & Yellows doubled their lead to 2-0 just over five minutes later. Another corner-kick was delivered into a dangerous area by Tobi Raschl and this time it was Franz Pfanne who headed the ball into the net at the back post. BVB produced a very good first-half performance, dominating proceedings with their attacking play while defending fervently to ensure they went in at the interval with a deserved two-goal lead.

BVB restarted the second period exactly where they had left off at the whistle. Barely three minutes had been played when Tobi Raschl played the ball into the path of the onrushing Berkan Taz, who tapped home for 3-0 from a tight angle. But the visitors did not throw in the towel and pulled a goal back through Cosgun in the 65th minute of the match.

It was by now an open encounter with Zwickau throwing everything forward, while BVB continued to have good counter-attacking opportunities. But all in all there were fewer highlights in the second period, in part because BVB defended cleverly and did not allow Zwickau to construct attacks. Immanuel Pherai had an opportunity to add a fourth goal in the dying minutes, but went down following contact in the box and could not get a shot away. No penalty was awarded.

An intense match that saw five minutes of stoppage time ended with three points for the Black & Yellows. The players will now head on holiday, before starting preparations for the second half-season at the start of January.

BVB U23s: Reckert – Maloney, Coulibaly (Finnsson, 62), Tattermusch (Broschinski, 72), Taz (Makreckis, 72), Papadopoulos, Pohlmann (Bornemann, 81), Viet, Pfanne, Pherai, Raschl (Krebs, 81)

Goals: 1-0 Pherai (21), 2-0 Pfanne (27), 3-0 Taz (47), 3-1 Cosgun (65)

Outlook: The 3. Liga season is now on its winter break. The U23s' first competitive match of 2022 will be away to Waldhof Mannheim on 17 January (19:00 CET).