DORTMUND, Germany — Borussia Dortmund don’t need a star to sparkle.
They don’t have Vinícius Júnior, Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappé — the talismans of this year’s other Champions League semifinalists — but the players they do have, they use effectively. Now, seemingly against the odds, they’re in sight of the final.
A 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain in Dortmund on Wednesday means that if BVB can avoid defeat in Paris next week in the second leg, they will be lining up against either Real Madrid or Bayern Munich at Wembley in the Champions League final.
If they get there, they will be underdogs again. But they were against Atletico Madrid in the last round and not many had them qualifying from a group that also included Newcastle United, AC Milan and PSG. Yet here they are, 90 minutes away from earning an unlikely shot at being crowned champions of Europe.
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Mats Hummels was named Man of the Match, and Jadon Sancho was exceptional — but as if to ram home the point about what is powering Borussia Dortmund’s Champions League run, coach Edin Terzic was more interested in praising the collective quality and spirit his players had shown.
“It was a well-deserved win, a good team performance,” he said. “We could have scored more goals, but so could they. That’s why the result is OK from my point of view. We ran a lot, but that’s necessary in a game like this. You have to earn your way to Wembley.
“All we need now is a draw in the second leg, but we also want to win next week. We have a small lead and a good opportunity.”
While PSG have collected star after star under the deep-pocketed ownership of Qatar Sports Investments, Borussia Dortmund have grown used to having their best players stripped away.
Jude Bellingham, Erling Haaland, Robert Lewandowski, Christian Pulisic, Ilkay Gündogan, Manuel Akanji and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang have all, at different times, gone onto bigger and better things. Ousmane Dembélé is now at PSG via a €135 million move to Barcelona from Dortmund in 2017.
The exit door at Signal Iduna Park has swung open again and again, but it hasn’t stopped Terzic from building a team that, as PSG found out, is greater than the sum of its parts. BVB’s goal here was scored by Niclas Füllkrug, a 31-year-old journeyman striker picked up for €15 million from Werder Bremen in the summer.
The pass that Fullkrug expertly took down and smashed low into the net midway through the first half was delivered by defender Nico Schlotterbeck, signed for €20 million from Freiburg in 2022.
There were impressive performances in midfield from Emre Can, back in Germany after spells at Liverpool and Juventus, and Marcel Sabitzer, deemed not good enough for either Bayern Munich or Manchester United last summer.
Veteran defender Hummels, back at Dortmund after being lured away to Bayern in 2016, was calm and clever in the face of Mbappe’s darting pace and movement. Ian Maatsen, who joined on loan from Chelsea in January following temporary spells in England’s lower leagues with Charlton Athletic, Coventry City and Burnley, was solid at left-back.
