Brugge goes down to Dortmund

Borussia Dortmund beat Club Brugge 1-0 thanks to a goal by young American Christian Pulisic, leaving fans at the Jan-Breydel Stadium in Bruges in disbelief.

Pulisic's unexpected goal came in the 85th minute on Tuesday, only moments after Club Brugge's Lois Openda failed to score a close range shot that would have helped the Belgian club to take the lead, reports Efe.

With Croatian Ivan Leko as its head coach, the current leader of the Belgian national league entered the field in a 3-5-2 formation while the German team, second in the Bundesliga, opted for a 4-3-3 as planned by coach Lucien Favre.

After half hour into the match, Dortmund demanded a penalty for Club Brugge following an apparent hand play of Hans Vanaken, which was not seen by Dutch referee Danny Makkelie.

For the first half, apart from an unsuccessful shot by Mario Goetze, the audience saw another scoring attempt in the 38th minute when Stefano Denswil tried to shoot from 30 meters away.

In the second half, coaches of both teams made multiple changes in their squads. Favre replaced Goetze with Japanese Shinji Kagawa while Leko replaced Vlietinck and Jadon Sancho with right-winger Dion Cools and Pulisic respectively.

The Croatian coach also sent Emmanuel Dennis and Lois Openda to the field, replacing Arnaut Groeneveld and Vossen.

Upon entering the field, Openda led a counterattack and attempted a shot a few meters from the goal line but failed to score. Moments later, Dortmund saw an opportunity to strike back as Pulisic dodged a clearance of Matej Mitrovic and shot the only goal for his team.

--IANS

gau/mr