A goal from forward Marco Reus has seen Dortmund claim first position on the Bundesliga table with a 1-0 win at home against Hoffenheim on Friday night.
Dortmund won their fourth game of five this season – and their third 1-0 victory of the campaign – thanks to a first-half goal from Reus.
Reus opened the scoring after 16 minutes, thumping in a ball slid in by English teenager Jamie Bynoe-Gittens after some creative work from the impressive Julian Brandt.
The goal was Reus’ 146th Bundesliga strike in 345 games – and the 60th time he has put his team up 1-0.
“We did very well in the first half, in the second we ran out of steam a bit,” Reus told DAZN immediately after the game.
“We protected our goal well, we have to be a bit more cold-blooded up front.”
Dortmund striker Anthony Modeste almost scored his second goal of the season after 68 minutes when he capitalised on a deflected strike from Thorgan Hazard, but Hoffenheim keeper Oli Baumann managed to throw his chest in the way.
Dortmund managed to see off a late Hoffenheim attack from former Dortmunder Jacob Bruun Larsen in the 87th minute to win 1-0.
Dortmund coach Edin Terzic lauded his side’s performance.
“Especially in the first half we played an excellent game, pushing it offensively, with many chances at goal… it looked really, really good.”
“We said at half-time we wanted to continue it (that way)… in the second half it didn’t go quite so well, but we still had one or two good chances.
“We won 1-0 – we kept them to zero at the end – but we would have been glad to score a second today.”
Despite the win, Dortmund lost Bynoe-Gittens to a suspected dislocated shoulder in the first half, adding to a growing injury list including defensive midfielder Mahmoud Dahoud who will be out until at least November with the same injury.
Hoffenheim finish the evening in fifth, with three wins and two losses after five games.
On Saturday, either Bayern Munich or Union Berlin have the chance to go top when they clash in Berlin in the match-of-the-round.
