Christian Pulisic and Mario Götze excelled in a ruthless, full-throttle victory at Wolfsburg which made mincemeat of the predictions after a summer of turmoil
Everybody loves a shock result on the opening day of the season. What was so unusual as the Bundesliga got back to business was that Borussia Dortmund’s comprehensive victory at Wolfsburg on Saturday afternoon – last term’s third-placed finishers winning at the team that ended third-bottom, having to win the dreaded relegation-promotion play-off to save themselves – felt as if it was one of them.
Given that this summer was supposed to tidy up some loose ends at Westfalen, it’s been far from a smooth ride for Dortmund and their fans over the last two-and-a-bit months. After the expected but clumsily handled exit of Thomas Tuchel, Nice’s miracle worker, Lucien Favre (who previously performed similar feats at Hertha Berlin and Borussia Mönchengladbach), was expected to step in. There was one small problem. The Côte d’Azur club’s president, Jean-Pierre Rivère, wouldn’t play ball, and having had months to plan for the Tuchel succession, Dortmund’s CEO, Hans-Joachim Watzke, and sporting director, Michael Zorc, were left with an unsightly gap to fill, and quickly.
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