Erling Haaland scored his 13th goal in 14 Bundesliga games to secure second place in the table ahead of RB Leipzig for Borussia Dortmund, with Gio Reyna claiming an assist in his first top-flight start.
Knowing a victory will mean they finish behind champions of Bayern Munich and Dortmund came out of the blocks flying in front of their hosts. Lucien Favre ‘s side has worked their way through the Leipzig backline steadily in a vastly improved team performance from the one that says they are suffering a midweek loss at home to Mainz.
Haaland forced several saves from Peter Gulacsi and had a goal-bound shot blocked by a teammate all-in within the opening for 15 minutes. Mats Hummels sent a great out-of-the-foot pass to Thorgan Hazard but the Belgian forward also found Gulacsi in his direction. But Hummels started the move that deservedly led Dortmund to go ahead.
Julian Brandt was sent to the right and found Reyna in the box, the American teenager in his first Bundesliga showing vision and control picking up Haaland in front of the net, and the Dortmund striker duly slotted in.
Leipzig ‘s Captain Marcel Sabitzer was injured before the break after knocking on his knee under a Haaland challenge and Timo Werner forced Roman Bürki’s first save of the day in the final minutes of a half dominated by Dortmund.
Dortmund picked up where they left off at the beginning of the second half and almost immediately headed ahead with two goals. Haaland played the goal-to-goal ball for Mateu Morey but the full-back Spaniard sliced his close-range goal-wide effort. Then Haaland shot himself with Gulacsi on the crossbar making an excellent save for holding it on.
Leipzig began to get on the ball more midway through the second period but struggled to find a way through the well-structured defense of Dortmund, with Bürki untested in the second half until the last five minutes when he saved from Angelino ‘s attempted lob inside the Dortmund box.
Haaland found the net from Brandt’s assist to secure the win and second place from Dortmund for the second time, to put the cherry on the cake.
