AS Monaco vs. Borussia Dortmund: Final score 3-2, BVB in a Champions League hole

Playing one day after their bus was struck by explosives, Borussia Dortmund looked in no mood to compete with one of Europe’s best teams in the first half of their Champions League game against AS Monaco. They recovered to put together a very good second-half performance, but still lost 3-2, and will face a tough task in the second leg.

The referees got off to just as slow of a start as Dortmund’s players on Wednesday evening. Monaco was given a soft penalty in the 16th minute, when Kylian Mbappe went down after very minimal contact from Sokratis. Thankfully for BVB, Fabinho missed from the spot.

But Monaco had their opening goal just three minutes later, again aided by a bad call. Mbappe scored by turning a Thomas Lemar cross in with his midsection, and he didn’t appear to know anything about the ball hitting him. And more importantly, he was offside.

BVB couldn’t blame the officials for the second goal they conceded, though. That one was all on Sven Bender, who headed a cross into his own net to double Monaco’s lead.

After struggling to produce much going forward in the first half, Dortmund made two attacking substitutions at the break. Christian Pulisic entered for Marcel Schmelzer, while Nuri Sahin came in for Sven Bender. Those changes moved Raphael Guerreiro from midfield to left back and gave Borussia Dortmund one more attacker than they started the match with.

It didn’t take long for those changes to pay dividends. In the 58th minute, Dortmund hauled a goal back through a spectacular team attack. Sahin crossed for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who played a backheel towards Shinji Kagawa. The Japanese attacker made Danijel Subasic overcommit before squaring the ball to Ousmane Dembele for a tap-in.

But Monaco would go on to add a third away goal. In the 79th minute, Marcel Schmelzer turned the ball over to Mbappe, who sprinted past the Dortmund defense and beat Roman Bürki with a placed shot from 20 yards.

Still, Dortmund isn’t throwing in the towel, and scored a late goal to give themselves a chance in the second leg. Kagawa pulled off his second piece of spectacular skill of the second half, tricking his defender into running by him with an incredible touch in the box, then passing the ball into the back of the net.

BVB will be in a serious hole heading to Monaco, but it would be silly to count them out. On the evidence of both of these teams’ matches all season, the score of the second leg could be absolutely anything.