Sevilla were on a run when they welcomed Borussia Dortmund to the Sanchez-Pizjuan for the first leg of their last 16 Champions League tie, but their spirits were dented slightly principally due to the hurricane-like Erling Haaland, the game ending 3-2 to the men from the Black Forest.
Sevilla went into the game fourth in La Liga, on a run of nine straight victories and seven consecutive clean sheets, and they started well, opening the scoring inside the opening ten minutes. Suso saw his effort on goal deflected, spinning past the opposition goalkeeper and into the back of the net to give the Andalusians the ideal start.
Dortmund weren’t long striking back, however, equalising just shy of the 20th minute through a well-taken strike from Mahmoud Dahoud before taking the lead in the 26th minute through Haaland. The Norwegian marksman doubled his tally shortly before half-time after seizing on an Ivan Rakitic mistake, only for Sevilla to pull one back inside the final ten through Luuk de Jong.
“The result wasn’t good,” Julen Lopetegui said post-match in comments carried by Marca. “Losing at home to an opponent like Dortmund is never positive because it’s a bad result ahead of the second leg, but there’s one game left and we hold on to that.
“We didn’t deserve to lose, but in the end they have one of the best players in the world, and he’s made the difference in situations we should have avoided. It’s a tough punishment. Now we have to rebuild and get up. The boys have made a great effort and now we have to prepare well for the next game.”
