Christian Pulisic, Borussia Dortmund’s Second String Excel in Blowout Victory

In an impressive reaction to a disappointing 1-0 defeat at RB Leipzig on the previous Bundesliga matchday, Borussia Dortmund followed up their biggest UEFA Champions League win with another humdinger of a performance.

The Ruhr side matched Wednesday’s 6-0 victory at Legia Warsaw in front of their own fans against SV Darmstadt on Saturday.

The box score will tell readers that the Black and Yellows exploded in the second half, with five goals coming after the break, but, if truth be told, the hosts were in complete control throughout the 90 minutes. As soon as Gonzalo Castro scored the first goal in the seventh minute, it felt like the game was over.

The club’s Twitter account summed up the first-half action with one poignant picture:

Die erste Halbzeit in einem Bild. // Sums it up. #bvbd98 1-0 HT. pic.twitter.com/rJ16Us7FYO

— Borussia Dortmund (@BVB) September 17, 2016

The Lilies did their best Legia impression, in that they gave Dortmund acres of space to pass and dribble their way into the danger zone and, if not for some wayward finishing and good saves from goalkeeper Michael Esser, the result could’ve been disastrous for the underdogs with the entire second half to play.

The only way the visitors tried to combat Dortmund’s sparkling onslaught was with a seemingly never-ending barrage of fouls—which led to the sending-off of team captain Peter Niemeyer for a wild tackle on Adrian Ramos in the 57th minute.

The hosts were lucky to escape the match without any injuries and gave the right answer on the pitch, playing hapless opponents out of their shoes almost every time they moved the ball into Darmstadt’s final third.

What’s most impressive about the result is that the Black and Yellows did it with a lineup that we can safely call a B team, as Marc Bartra, Mario Gotze and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were rested with the busy schedule in mind—Dortmund are in the middle of a run of seven matches in 21 days between two international breaks—while Andre Schurrle and Lukasz Piszczek missed the game with slight injuries.

To the credit of back-ups Matthias Ginter and Ramos, as well as rotational players such as Castro, Felix Passlack or Christian Pulisic, there was no discernible drop in performance compared to the gala display of the Champions League. 

In fact, the entire second string performed incredibly well, with Castro scoring a brace, Pulisic scoring and setting up two more, while Ramos and substitutes Emre Mor and Sebastian Rode …

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