The U23 along with the two World Cup winners Kevin Groβkreutz and Matthias Ginter and also Jeremy Dudziak, who was only just playing with the first team yesterday, showed there is still lots to play for in the fight against relegation in the 3. Bundesliga: they beat SpVgg Unterhaching 1-0 (0-0) with one man down.

2800 spectators at the Rote Erde stadium, amongst them Jürgen Klopp and Mats Hummels, watched a very lively start by the U23 team, who were unlucky when Stankovic’s header crashed against the woodwork (12th minute). It would have been easier if Borussia would have taken the lead, because Unterhaching was obviously only interested in not losing the game.

Borussia forced the opponent back into their own half with lots of running, however they did not really create any dangerous situations in front of goal. They were even lucky that Alomerovic was alert when Haching had one of their few attacks (19th minute).

After a good half hour the Black Yellows should have finally got their just rewards, however they could not score from several chances to make it 1-0. Derstoff finally hesitated just a tick too long in front of a nearly empty goal (38th minute).

After the break it was a similar picture: Dortmund pressed, but the next clear cut chance fell to the opponent (56th minute). Then Ginter with a shot from long range (70th minute) and Maruoka (75th minute) could have easily made it 1-0.

Then the 77th minute: after a counter attack Hufnagel gets upended by Alomerovic – red card and penalty! Bonmann comes on for Derstoff and saves Köpke’s shot! And in the attack that follows Harder puts away Ioannidis’ pass to make it 1-0 for Black Yellow! Ten minutes later Erb gets his second yellow card and it is ten against ten for the three minutes of time added on… (Bra)