Real Madrid 5 Borussia Dortmund 2: Vinicius Jr inspires another Champions League comeback

Real Madrid staged an incredible second-half comeback to beat Borussia Dortmund at the Bernabeu in a second leg of last season’s Champions League final. The Bundesliga side were leading 2-0 after an hour, only for Madrid to overwhelm them with five goals, three of them from Vinicius Junior.

The athleteLiam Tharme, Dermot Corrigan and Seb Stafford-Bloor assess the key talking points…

Different game, same script…

Stop me if you’ve heard this: Madrid, trailing on a Champions League night at the Bernabeu, come back to win.

In Carlo Ancelotti’s second spell as manager since he returned at the start of the 2021/22 season, Madrid fell behind 18 times in Europe. From then on, they won eight times, more than they lost (seven), and drew three times. Unsurprisingly, this made them the best comeback team in the competition during that time. Of the eight home defeats, they have now won five games.

There have also been bad defeats during this time – at home against Sheriff Tiraspol from the Moldovan League, in the 2023/24 knockout round against Manchester City and most recently a 1-0 defeat in Lille – and even by Madrid standards This Remontada was ridiculous.

It was the first time in four years – almost to the day – that they were two goals down at half-time at home in the Champions League (against Shakhtar Donetsk), and this is their first European home win from a two-goal deficit for 20 years (against Roma in 2004).

In the end, Dortmund looked tired and overloaded, although manager Nuri Sahin switched to a back five that gave Vinicius Jr. plenty of time and space to break through and ended up scoring a hat-trick. Ancelotti just has to hope that Madrid don’t take advantage of their comebacks too early.

Liam Tharme

…but Madrid’s problems with the right-back are once again exposed

When these teams met in the Champions League final at Wembley in June, Madrid right-back Dani Carvajal was man of the match after an inspiring defensive performance and a goal.

There was plenty of criticism for Madrid’s first-half performance, but much of the focus was on right-back Lucas Vazquez, who is now a starter in that position with Carvajal ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.

For Dortmund’s first goal, Vazquez was not strong enough in a 50:50 with Julian Brandt on the edge of the Madrid penalty area and the ball ended up at Serhou Guirassy, ​​who set up Donyell Malen for the finish. Just three minutes later, Vazquez was nowhere to be seen when Jamie Gittens remained unmarked in the six-yard box and fired the ball into the goal.

The 33-year-old long-time squad player is not a natural defender, as was shown in La Liga last weekend when he was too slow to mark as Celta Vigo center forward Williot Swedberg was also unchallenged to score from close range.

However, with Madrid operating in attack for most of the second half, Vazquez showed his value and character by operating in the other direction. At the start of the half, as the pressure increased, he shot at goal from a tight angle. Then, in the 83rd minute, he completed the comeback by shooting forward from the right wing and slotting home Madrid’s opener.

Vazquez isn’t a bad player at all, but he’s just not a reliable right-back, and Madrid’s hierarchy hasn’t strengthened enough in defense in recent windows, so they decided not to sign anyone to replace utility defender Nacho Fernandez, as who left last summer.

This all means there is more talk about a potential move for Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold, whose contract situation means he could join Liverpool as a free agent next summer. It seems impossible to accelerate this until January, but Madrid actually have a big problem at right-back.

Dermot Corrigan

Vazquez was nowhere to be seen when Gittens (above) made it 2-0 for Dortmund (Denis Doyle/Getty Images)

Did Sahin’s substitutions cost Dortmund?

The difference between an excellent night for Sahin and a crushing disappointment lay in his substitutions.

Dortmund were dominant in the first half and played with the balance they had strived for all season. So far in the 2024/25 Bundesliga they have been hectic and fragile most of the time and terribly vulnerable when they lose the ball. Here they were calm and precise in the way they played out of their own defensive zone and ruthlessly exploited their chances.

And then…

Sahin, a 36-year-old former Dortmund player who assisted Edin Terzic in the second half of last season before moving up to the top job, appeared spooked by his position and the illusory threat of a Madrid comeback until he replaced Gittens as It never looked likely when Waldemar Anton packed up his defense and eliminated one of his escapes in the 10th minute of the second half.

Pressure from the home team was always going to come at some point, but Sahin gave up territory and momentum with that first substitution long before it was needed. When he responded to Vinicius Jr.’s 62nd-minute equalizer by replacing Malen with Pascal Gross, thereby sacrificing counter-attack speed in favor of a much more static player, Dortmund’s hope of regaining the lead seemed to fade, so the final result seemed inevitable.

Any sober analysis would blame Sahin for much of what happened tonight – and rightly so – but he was also the architect of his own downfall. Yes, it’s easy to be afraid of such a powerful opposition, but success involves resisting the impulses that come with it and not being prematurely conservative.

Ultimately, that will be the lesson that Sahin must learn from this.

Seb Stafford Bloor

What’s next for Real Madrid?

Saturday, October 26th: Barcelona (H), La Liga, 8pm UK, 3pm ET

What’s next for Borussia Dortmund?

Saturday, October 26th: Augsburg (A), Bundesliga, 2:30 p.m. UK, 9:30 a.m. ET

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(Top photo: Denis Doyle/Getty Images)