Thanks to his goal in the 81st minute on Wednesday night on the field of Atlético Madrid (2-1), Sébastien Haller allowed Borussia Dortmund to keep their hopes alive ahead of the Champions League quarter-final return leg in a week’s time at home in Germany.
Coming off the bench at the hour mark at the Civitas Metropolitano, with his team trailing 2-0, Sébastien Haller scored the goal that keeps Borussia alive before returning to Signal Iduna Park on Tuesday. Following a pass on the left slowed down by the ineffective intervention of a Madrid player, the Ivorian center-forward beat the opposing goalkeeper with a half-volley at the near post. He took the opportunity to score his third goal of the season, his first since returning from the AFCON triumph with the Elephants.
End of drought
It was a small event otherwise. Because it’s the first goal of the African champion with BVB in over 200 days (not 181 days as reported by PlanetSportBet below). It’s simple: you had to go back to August 12 last year to find his last goal with the Yellow and Blacks. He then scored a brace for the 6-1 win against Schott Mainz in the cup.
On the other hand, he opened his account in the Champions League since the successful 2021-2022 season with Ajax where he scored 11 times in the UCL and finished as the 3rd top scorer of that edition. At the time, he redeemed himself ideally against Benfica (2-2) by restoring the lead to his team three minutes after scoring an own goal. The following summer, Haller signed for Dortmund and learned he was suffering from testicular cancer, which caused him to miss a good part of the 2022/23 season before his substitute status penalized him this season.
Whatever the case, this achievement speaks volumes about the propensity of the main player to be decisive in big matches. His two previous goals, both club and international, were scored in the semi-final and final of the 2023 AFCON. An elite scorer.
