(Football news) Borussia Dortmund got their 5th win of this new year as they crushed 10-man Freiburg 5-1 in the Bundesliga on Saturday, with forward Sebastien Haller scoring for the first time since his return from cancer treatment as he helped his side into third spot. The Ruhr valley club will face Chelsea in the Champions League Round of 16 on Feb. 15 and look in top notch form heading into the all important match. Dortmund made it four wins out of four league games since the restart and moved up to 37 points.
Freiburg dropped to sixth place to 34 points as they slipped at the start with Kiliann Sildillia who got booked twice in three minutes to reduce his team to 10 men in the 17th minute. Dortmund took advantage of this situation and former Freiburg player Nico Schlotterbeck scored from a tight angle in the 26th minute. Dortmund put Freiburg firmly on the back foot as the visitors scored against the run of play with Lucas Hoeler scoring from a loose ball after the hosts had failed to clear the ball. The Ruhr Valley club restored parity after the restart as Dortmund scored two goals in a span of three minutes.
Jude Bellingham brilliantly set up Karim Adeyemi with a backheel flick as he slipped the ball past keeper Mark Flekken in the 48th minute. Haller, having come back from months of surgery and chemotherapy to treat testicular cancer to put his misery behind him and get back to his usual scoring ways. The Ivory Coast forward scored in the 51 minutes for his first competitive goal for Dortmund. Captain Marco Reus should have scored but he rattled the crossbar with his shot. Julian Brandt scored the fourth goal with a long-range effort that went off the post in the 69th minute and Gio Reyna put the final nail in the coffin as they completed Freiburg’s demolition in the 82nd minute after Freiburg coach Christian Streich was sent off as well for dissent on the touch line.
“We did it really well, defended well and allowed no single corner for Freiburg in the entire game,” said Dortmund coach Edin Terzic. We also scored five goals which made us happy but we know we have to do it again next week. This goal came way too late. We had wished he had scored his first goal back in July and August when we signed him, but you all know the story since then. So the goal came today, in front of the yellow wall [of Dortmund fans]. It means so very much to him and so very much to us. We hope it was the first of many, many goals.”
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