VIDEO: Festival of missed chances in Dortmund. Morata’s lob could have sent Atlético further ahead

The Champions League quarter-final rematch between Borussia Dortmund and Atlético Madrid had a hectic start. Each team threw away one big chance in the first five minutes, namely Marcel Sabitzer and Álvaro Morata.

Atlético were perhaps surprisingly more active in the opening game, but a goal conceded late in the match to make it 1: 2 spoiled the good impression. Diego Simeone opened the game unexpectedly at home, away he can afford to concede at most one more goal to go to extra time.

And it could have come after two minutes when Marcel Sabitzer got in front of the goalkeeper alone. But the Austrian midfielder didn’t score from the edge of the box, a fantastic block was pulled off by experienced stopper César Azpilicueta.

An inaccurate lob from the cannonballer

The traditional rule of “Can’t score? Only a minute later, Spanish hitman Álvaro Morata escaped on the other side. He decided to lob Dortmund’s goalkeeper, but it just missed the target.

Morata has good memories of Champions League play-off games like this. In the memorable 2019/20 Champions League semi-final, he scored an important goal at Anfield in extra time to help knock out the famous Liverpool.

Both clubs without their mainstays

Each team will have to do without one of their goalscorers in the rematch. Young winger Samuel Lino was shown a yellow card and will not help his team at Signal Iduna Park.

The Brazilian has gradually become indispensable over the season. Dortmund received an unplanned blow at the weekend when they had to substitute canon Sebastian Haller in the tenth minute.

Borussia’s offensive number one has long had terrific numbers in the Champions League, but an injury from Mönchengladbach put him out of the game.

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