Dortmund beat Chelsea in an attractive Champions League semi-final. The win was decided by Adeyemi

On Wednesday night, the Champions League semi-final saw the opening match between Dortmund and Chelsea, a duel between teams in different states of mind. While Borussia have won all their games so far in the new year and are only three points behind leaders Bayern in the Bundesliga table, the Blues, who brought in a number of reinforcements in the winter, have struggled with poor form since the start of the current season. The Yellow and Black will go into the rematch at Stamford Bridge with a one-goal lead.

Right from the start of the game, Londoners’ right-back Reece James suffered a setback as he was shown a yellow card in the ninth minute for his foul. The game was played at a good pace from the start, with both teams trying to attack.

After a quarter of an hour of play, a standard Chelsea situation saw the ball in the home goal, but the score remained unchanged. Thiago Silva got the ball behind Gregor Kobel’s back thanks to a handball, which he immediately admitted to. He then did not escape a yellow card from referee Manzano for deliberately playing with his upper arm.

The Dortmund players were more active and generally more dangerous in the offensive despite the attacking hints of the visiting team.

Dortmund were the more active and dangerous offensively despite the attacking hints from the away team. For example, Sébastien Haller, returning from testicular cancer, missed his chance. After the opening half hour, João Felix had two interesting chances on the other side, the second one even hitting the crossbar.

Moments after the break, the head referee also showed a yellow card to the German players. Jude Bellingham saw it first and then Emre Can for his fouls. Subsequently, in the 55th minute, James’ well-played direct free kick was awarded, but Kobel dealt with it.

Kepa Arrizabalaga also made an important save three minutes later. The Chelsea goalkeeper deflected Enzo Fernández’s cross.

Edin Terzic’s side still took the lead after a busy passage of play, finishing off a quick counter-attack in the 63rd minute. Karim Adeyemi delighted the crowd at the Signal Iduna Park with his goal, beating the opposition defender and the goalkeeper on a breakaway.

The following period was mainly marked by the efforts of coach Graham Potter’s team to score an equalising goal. Koulibaly came very close in the 78th minute. Kobel intervened against his shot, but the ball went into the net. It was ghostly kicked off the line by Can to safety.

The end of the attractive match was not without a scuffle at the benches, which was soon calmed down. In any case, the match was high tempo until the last moments, but this did not result in another goal, thanks to Kobel’s intervention against Fernandez’s good shot from outside the box. Borussia Dortmund thus defeated Chelsea 1-0 in the first leg of the semi-final.

Source: UEFA, Nova Sport 3