The resounding feeling of Dortmund fans after tonight’s game, “Thank God.” Dortmund held off Napoli at the Signal Iduna Park in an interesting 3-1 win which leaves the Group wide open heading into the final matchday.

It was a must win game for Dortmund as they lied 3 points behind their opponents of the game in Group F, and win is what they did. Goals from Marco Reus, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang sealed a win that gives Dortmund a chance to qualify from the group, with a win away in France needed next month.

It was a game that Dortmund took by the ruff of the neck from the start. They attacked Napoli with their pace and power throughout the game and gave them no space. Dortmund were again able to create a large amount of attempts on goal, 20 to be exact. 12 of those attempts were on target, giving Pepe Reina a very busy night. But a small worry for BVB is that their star centre forward, Robert Lewandowski, had just one of those shots on target. His other 4 attempts didn’t threaten Reina’s goal. Although Dortmund’s other attacking players stepped up their game to score on Tuesday night, it would be worrying for any team to have a striker struggling in front of goal like Lewandowski is.

Reus opened the scoring from the penalty spot in the 10th minute after Lewandowski earned a penalty from a foul by Federico Fernandez. Reus was superb from start to finish; and after no other goals were scored in the 1st half, he set-up Kuba to double Dortmund’s lead on the hour mark, with a neat finish under Reina.

Dortmund remained mostly on top in the game, until the 71st minute. A poor piece of player from make-shift Dortmund defender, Sebastian Kehl, allowed Higuaín to play in Lorenzo Insigne for a Napoli life-line. Dortmund reacted well from the Italian’s goal and continued to create chance after chance in the final 15 minutes. Inevitably, the Italian resistance broke for a third time through second-half substitute, Aubameyang. A lovely chip over Reina was enough to seal the win for Dortmund and give them hope of qualification once again.

It was clear that Napoli weren’t used to the great pressure that Dortmund were applying on them. Henrikh Mkhitaryan was superb on the night, aswell as his attacking partner, Marco Reus. He was formidable when running at the Napoli defence, as was Reus. After a lot of questioning of the Dortmund team over the last few weeks, it was refreshing to see such a confident performance from the yellow men.

Napoli gave their hopes of qualification a real blow with this defeat. They now lie level on points with Dortmund, and 3 behind Arsenal. They face Arsenal in Naples next month in what will be the game of the season so far for the Italians. 

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