and elsewhere …
Thanks for reading this MBM. Jacob Steinberg’s report is below. Nighty night!
Graham Potter talks to BT Sport. “There’s a lot of emotion in the body … a bit tense at the end … I thought the boys were fantastic, some good opportunities … they encroached, and we got a little bit of luck there I guess … I wasn’t watching [the retaken penalty] but was delighted when I heard the roar … I’m in awe of anyone who can retake it in that situation, it was fantastic … everyone’s delighted, we’ve been through a tough period … obviously this competition means a lot to us … we’re in the last eight and it sets us up for a good few weeks … we have to recover and prepare for Leicester on Saturday … but it’s great for the boys, two wins and two clean sheets after a tough period … the players were fantastic and gave everything … over the two games I thought we deserved to go through.”
Graham Potter will be talking soon enough, no doubt. But while we wait for his verdict, our man Jacob Steinberg’s is in. Here it is!
Raheem Sterling talks to BT Sport. “It was a massive performance, we had to dig deep … we took our chances … recently we haven’t had the luck but we knew we could do it, and Kai did it in the end … I see Kai take penalties so often and I was so confident.”
Kai Havertz adds: “The referee let me retake the penalty … I was a bit nervous but I scored and that’s the most important thing … I tried to wait to look at the keeper and saw he was going to go again the same side, and the second one was a bit easier … the last two weeks will help us … we have lost a lot of games … the Champions League is an important tournament and the last one we are in, so we have to give everything … we want to win this competition again and win some games in the Premier League.”
Dortmund surround the referee to lodge some complaints. Was the decisive penalty decision harsh? Maybe. Maybe not. Whatever your view, you’ll be able to find someone to argue with on the internet somewhere, I should imagine. But either way, Chelsea deservedly go through. It was weird enough how they couldn’t find the net in Dortmund despite carving out several chances; tonight they could easily have had a couple more goals, Kai Havertz’s first-half shot cannoning off the base of the post and somehow rolling across the line but not over it, Raheem Sterling twice setting up goals that were disallowed as a result of his being a toe offside here, a toenail offside there. The small margins, and that’s football, but if nothing else it illustrates how Chelsea were much the better team this evening. They’re through to the quarters, and all of a sudden the Graham Potter era gains some momentum.
FULL TIME: Chelsea 2-0 Borussia Dortmund (agg 2-1)
The whistle goes! A good week for Chelsea and a great one for Graham Potter ends with Chelsea making it through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League!
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90 min +7: Chelsea take the free kick. Dortmund half clear, but can’t get out of their final third. Bellingham slides in hard on James, and is booked, though the two England internationals remain on friendly terms when the Chelsea man gets back up. This is surely over.
90 min +6: That should be it, because Chelsea go up the other end, Chilwell drawing a foul from Wolf, just to the left of the Dortmund box. It briefly gets tasty again, and Cucurella goes into the book.
90 min +5: A huge chance for Dortmund! The ball drops to Wolf near the penalty spot. He tries to pass into the top left, only for the ball to clip off a nearby defender and softly into Kepa’s hands.
90 min +4: Pulisic has the opportunity to send Gallagher into space down the middle, but opts to dribble towards the corner flag instead. He fails to retain possession, though, and Can leads a counter. Reus goes down just inside the box and claims a penalty. Nope. Sule lashes the ball goalwards. Deflected wide left. Corner. Up comes the keeper!
90 min +3: Guerreiro rolls a pass down the left for Bellingham, who whips a low cross towards Schlotterbeck at the near stick. Kepa reads the danger and nips in to claim. He drops to the floor clutching the ball. Tick, tock.
90 min +2: A free kick for Dortmund deep in their own territory. Chilwell saunters away with the ball, eating up some clock cynically. He’s shoved in the back by Wolf, and it momentarily threatens to kick off. Everyone calms down soon enough, although both Chilwell and Wolf go into the book as a result.
90 min: Pulisic is sent free down the middle, only to drag a dreadful shot wide left. The flag goes up for offside to spare his blushes. There will be six added minutes. Chelsea so close to the quarter finals, yet still so far.
89 min: Wolf curls in from the right. Bellingham leaps highest, six yards out, but the ball’s a little too far behind him, and a little bit too high. His weak header wafts over the crossbar. A grimace from the young England international, who has been pretty quiet this evening by his own standards.
88 min: Some space for Reyna out on the left. He’s got options, but blooters hopelessly straight at James, who clears.
87 min: Zakaria comes on for Fernandez, another what-we-have-we-hold move by Graham Potter.
86 min: Chelsea are sitting back now, determined to hold onto what they have. The clock is on their side, though there’ll most likely be a good chunk of added time, given the rumpus around the twice-taken penalty.
85 min: Reyna is very lightly bodychecked by Gallagher as he attempts to advance down the inside left. Foul. It’s a pretty generous award for what was little more than a brush. Dortmund load the Chelsea box, then waste the free kick.
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83 min: Bellingham attempts to slide Reyna into the Chelsea box with a clever pass down the inside-left channel, but James comes across to intercept and clear, then nearly releases Pulisic down the right. The tension is now palpable.
82 min: Loftus-Cheek and Pulisic come on Sterling and Kovacic.
80 min: The VAR replay shows that, had Sterling clipped his toenails last night, he may not have been caught offside back there. It was that close. The big decisions may have gone Chelsea’s way tonight; the margins most certainly have not. An inch here, another there, and Chelsea could quite feasibly have scored three more goals (Sterling just offside twice, Havertz hitting the base of the post in the first half). They’ve created chances and played well. But that’s football, and it’s all still in the balance!
78 min: Guerreiro drives down the middle of the pitch and is clipped cynically by Fernandez, who goes into the book. A free kick, just left of centre, 25 yards out. Guerreiro dinks the ball into the mixer. Kovacic clears.
77 min: Haller has done absolutely nothing, and is replaced by Malen.
76 min: Not for the first time this evening, Chelsea have the ball in the net only for the flag to go up for offside. Sterling again is the man caught out, as he rips down the middle, draws Meyer, then passes to his right for Gallagher to walk the ball into the net. It’s the correct decision, but this one was mighty close.
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75 min: Sterling makes good down the left and wins Chelsea a corner. Chilwell sends an outswinger towards Fofana, who mistimes his leap and fails to connect. That was a decent half-chance to put some blue water between the two teams.
73 min: A little bit of time and space for Sule down the inside-right channel. He pearls a glorious low diagonal drive towards the bottom-left corner. It flies inches wide. Kepa probably had it covered, but it would have been a close thing.
72 min: Chilwell’s corner isn’t all that. The visitors clear.
71 min: Dortmund probe. Chelsea sit deep. Inviting pressure? Possibly, though it also gives Chelsea the opportunity to break at speed, and they do so here through James and Gallagher down the right. Corner.
69 min: Slotterbeck plays quarterback, slinging a long pass down the middle from deep. It’s too far ahead of Reus, who would have been sent clear by a perfectly weighted ball. Kepa comes to the edge of his box to claim.
67 min: Now Chelsea make their first switch of the evening, and theirs is a more defensively minded one. Gallagher replaces Felix, who doesn’t seem particularly enamoured with the decision, trudging off with a face on.
66 min: Reyna cuts back from the right wing. Wolf enters the box and slams a shot towards the bottom right. Kepa saves brilliantly, then Bellingham concedes a free kick. Kepa faffs around over the restart, and goes into the referee’s notebook.
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64 min: Dortmund’s first tactical sub of the evening, and it’s an attacking one: Bynoe-Gittens comes on for Ozcan.
62 min: Replays of the missed penalty confirm the encroachment. The player who cleared the rebound from the post – Guerreiro I think, but don’t quote me Ozcan – was in the D before Havertz took the penalty. So there we go.
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60 min: Despite the double blow suffered by Dortmund either side of the half-time break, the travelling fans are still making a rare old racket. “Is this delayed Frisk compensation?” wonders Niall Mullen, in a cheeky mood.
58 min: Dortmund nearly level in short order! Guerreiro crosses low from the left. A game of bagatelle breaks out. The ball lands at Bellingham’s feet, six yards out. Bellingham can only take a swift lash at it, and sends it bouncing harmlessly wide left. A reminder for Chelsea that there’s still work to be done.
57 min: … so when it all comes down, Chelsea are in front in this tie for the first time, and the quarter-finals await. Do Dortmund have a response in them? “On those two Havertz penalties, I’m curious,” begins Martin Gamage. “Where is the line between checking the run and stopping? For my money, Havertz is stopping there. Personally, I’d mandate the taker has to run smoothly up to the ball.”
55 min: Sterling hares after a long punt down the middle of the park. Meyer comes right to the edge of the box to claim. Sterling suggests he’s handled outside, which would send the keeper into a whole world of pain, but the referee’s not having that one. We play on.
54 min: The Dortmund players surround the referee in collective fury. They’re not happy with either of those decisions. But what’s done is done.
GOAL! Chelsea 2-0 Borussia Dortmund (Haverts 53 pen); agg 2-1
Havertz does exactly the same thing: a stop-start run-up that sends Meyer one way, the ball passed calmly into the bottom right. What ice in the veins! What nerves of steel! What?!
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52 min: That’s a tight decision but a correct one. Havertz will try again! Full marks for bravery!
Chelsea to retake!
51 min: … but Chelsea will get a second chance, because Sule encroached before Havertz took the spot kick!
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50 min: Havertz takes a little rat-a-tat step towards the ball. Meyer goes left. Havertz passes towards the bottom right … only for the ball to clank off the bottom of the right-hand post and away!
Penalty for Chelsea!
49 min: A big decision goes in Chelsea’s favour! Wolf’s arm was dangling a little bit far out, perhaps … but it’s a decision that could easily have gone either way. Huge for Chelsea!
48 min: The ball hit Wolf’s hand for sure, but the defender was very close to Chilwell when it happened, he was turning away, and his hand wasn’t in an unnatural position. You’d think this one would be waved away by VAR … but the referee’s sent over to the screen to take a look!
47 min: Sterling slides Chilwell into space down the left. Chilwell crosses, only for the ball to hit Wolf’s right hand. Chelsea scream for a penalty. Off to VAR it goes!
Chelsea get the ball rolling again. Dortmund are kicking towards the Shed End in this second half.
Half-time intermission. “I see you and raise you,” writes Joe Pearson.
HALF TIME: Chelsea 1-0 Borussia Dortmund (agg 1-1)
Chelsea have been knocking on the door for three halves of football against Dortmund, and they’ve finally found a way through. The tie is level, with it all to play for in the second half. No away goal rule any more, remember, so extra time and penalties is very much a possibility!
45 min +3: Bellingham dinks a cute ball down the middle to release Guerreiro into the Chelsea box. Guerreiro prepares to slam home from the penalty spot … only for Chilwell to slide in out of nowhere to block!
45 min +2: Reus travels in from the left and attempts to tee up Guerreiro, but Cucurella sticks to his shoulder and ensures there’s no shot on goal.
45 min: There will be three added minutes. Chelsea could do with this half continuing for another 33. Dortmund desperately need to hear the half-time whistle.
44 min: You can’t say Chelsea didn’t deserve that. A little bit of luck for Sterling there, getting a second bite at the cherry after he whiffed his kick, but it’s nothing more than the footballing gods owed Chelsea after those Havertz and Koulibaly near misses.
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GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Borussia Dortmund (Sterling 43); agg 1-1
They don’t make it to half-time unscathed, and this had been coming! Chilwell, increasingly dangerous, powers down the left and fires a low ball into the mixer. Sterling attempts to meet it first time by the penalty spot, only to take a fresh-air swipe. No matter! The ball pings back to him off Reus. He takes a touch before slamming an unstoppable rising shot into the roof of the net from ten yards!
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42 min: Sule is booked for taking his sweet time over a free kick in the centre circle. Dortmund clearly need to calm things down, a fact illustrated by Chilwell then striding into their box before slicing wildly wide left. The visitors could do with hearing the half-time whistle.
40 min: Chilwell is skittled out near the left touchline by Wolf. He gets up and curls a troublesome ball into a busy box. Meyer comes to claim but misses. Koulibaly, six yards out, just needs to trundle it home … but the ball comes off him backwards! Felix tries to slam home from the middle of the tumult, but Meyer blocks and Dortmund clear. For the second time tonight … how did that stay out for Chelsea?
38 min: Sterling romps clear down the right. He’s one on one with Meyer! He enters the box and slams his shot straight at the keeper. The ball rebounds to Havertz, on the edge of the box. Havertz takes a touch by the right-hand corner of the D, opens his body, and whips a glorious sidefooted riser across Meyer and into the top right. What a finish! But the flag goes up belatedly for offside on Sterling in the first instance. Such a shame for Havertz.
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36 min: A little bit of space for Felix down the inside-right channel. He scuffs his shot, but the ball breaks off a Dortmund defender and dribbles out for a corner on the left. Before Chilwell can take it, a couple of containers are thrown onto the pitch from the Dortmund end. It’s not Kia Ora. Some smoke canisters perhaps. Anyway, they don’t go off, and the resulting corner is a waste of time.
34 min: Sterling plays a simple pass towards James on the right touchline straight out of play. Not for the first time tonight, his loose play earns him a few groans from his own fans.” It’s weird to see Chelsea how difficult it is for Chelsea to score,” writes Kári Tulinius. “I’m starting to wonder if Graham Potter is cursed. Is his hobby breaking into pyramids?”
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33 min: James crosses deep from the right. Chilwell volleys back infield from the left. Dortmund only half clear, and the ball drops to Kovacic, just outside the box. Kovacic shapes like Zinedine Zidane in the 2002 final for Real Madrid against Bayer Leverkusen … but the resulting volley isn’t quite as clean. Goal kick.
31 min: Schlotterbeck powers his way down the left and draws a clumsy nudge from Havertz. A free kick. Everyone lines up on the edge of the Chelsea box, waiting for Reus to curl it in … but he throws a dummy and Guerreiro hoicks it into the area instead. Kepa punches clear confidently.
30 min: That’s got the Chelsea fans going again, if nothing else. A huge roar to acknowledge how close their team have just come to levelling the tie.
28 min: An astonishing escape for Dortmund! James crosses low from the right. Sule half clears. The ball drops to Havertz, just inside the box and level with the right-hand post. Havertz belts a low shot towards the bottom right and past the despairing arm of Meyer. The ball clanks off the base of the post and across the face of goal, only just evading the bottom-left corner and instead sneaking inches wide of the left-hand post. How on earth did that not go in?!
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26 min: Dortmund are playing with the confidence of a team who have won their last ten matches straight. They’re stroking it around with composure.
24 min: Sule lumps down the middle. For a second, it looks as though Haller and Reus will combine to break through a disorganised Chelsea back line, but Koulibaly comes across to close the door just in time. Then Dortmund come again, Reyna bustling into the Chelsea box down the right, holding off Kovacic, and firing a low cross through the six-yard box. Nobody in yellow has taken a gamble, and Chelsea breathe a sigh of relief.
22 min: Koulibaly, out on the left touchline, plays a cute ball around the corner to release Felix into space. Can skittles the Chelsea man over to concede a free kick … but possession is soon shipped by the home side, to the audible frustration of the home support.
20 min: Chelsea come forward for the first time in a while. Sterling plays a pass down the right channel to nobody in particular. The ball’s soon safe in the arms of Meyer in the Dortmund goal.
19 min: In fact, the visitors have enjoyed 72 percent of possession so far. The home fans have fallen somewhat quiet as a result, so first job done by Dortmund. The away corner is still giving it plenty, though.
18 min: Dortmund keep Chelsea pinned back in their own box, though, and win a corner on the left. Haller attacks the ball at the near post but Fofana isn’t letting him win this particular battle, and clears. This is a good response from Dortmund to Chelsea’s positive start.
17 min: The free kick’s worth waiting for. Reus flicks it over the Chelsea wall and towards the top left. It’s heading in, but Kepa sticks out a strong arm to claw it out. Wonderful football all round!
16 min: Some pre-free-kick faffing.
15 min: Dortmund are beginning to establish a modicum of control. They pass and probe, probe and pass. Chelsea get fed up, and Fofana clatters Reyna to the ground. A free kick, just to the left of the D, perhaps a further couple of yards out. A dangerous position, in other words.
13 min: Chelsea had come flying out of the traps, so Dortmund slow things down a little. Savvy game management.
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12 min: The Dortmund fans are making one hell of a racket, leaping up and down in unison as they sing their paeans to their heroes. It’s a glorious sight as well as a beautiful noise. The majesty of European football under the lights, right here!
10 min: Cucurella comes sliding in on Bellingham and gets away with a challenge that he might not later in the match.
8 min: Chelsea come again. They’re on it tonight all right! Felix wedges a glorious pass down the inside-right channel for Havertz, who gets a yard on Can before blazing over from the edge of the box. “Design classics those Kia Ora containers!” cries Neil Spektor, high on the sweet, sweet taste of e-numbers.
7 min: Chelsea have started quickly, and Felix dribbles his way into the Dortmund box from the left past a static Sule. He’s one on one with Meyer, who makes himself big and blocks at the expense of a corner. The corner’s hit long, and Koulibaly flashes a header wide right. Both sets of fans in top voice.
5 min: Brandt goes down. He’s feeling the back of his left leg. He can’t continue. A combination of a cold evening and rushed preparation having turned up late? Who knows. Anyway, he’s replaced by Reyna.
4 min: There’s no Gelbe Wand outside of the Westfalenstadion, of course, but the travelling fans bring the colour anyway. Plenty of yellow smoke coming from their corner of the stadium. It billows across the pitch. What an atmosphere!
2 min: Dortmund are kicking towards the Matthew Harding stand in the first half. They quickly win the first corner of the evening down there. Brandt swings it in but Havertz and Cucurella combine to clear. Then the hosts counter and Sterling’s away down the left, sent clear by Havertz! Sterling hesitates as Meyer stands in his way. Sterling’s soon swarmed, and can’t get a shot away. Meyer collects, then the flag goes up for offside. What a start!
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Chelsea v Borussia Dortmund (agg 0-1)
Borussia Dortmund get the ball rolling. Meanwhile Charles Antaki has just got back to his seat from the snack kiosk, just in time. “Why not try a hot dog? Why not indeed - who could resist that unctuous, not-quite-BBC voice? As it happens, I don’t think any of the cinemas I used to go to in my youth actually had hotdogs (and if they did, they would be very suspicious). But you could get certainly get Kia-Ora in some remarkably uncool plastic cartons. Ou sont les neiges d’antan? Not in the local Enormo-Plex, I suspect.”
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The teams are out! A hot atmosphere on a cold night at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea wear their royal blue shirts, while Dortmund sport their first-choice gelbe und schwarze Hemden. The Liquidator, followed by the Uefa-sanctioned bastardisation of Zadok the Priest, blasts out of the PA system. Meanwhile Brendan Large would like to counter the teeming pre-match postbag o’pessimism with some countdown-to-kickoff correspondence o’confidence. “James and Chilwell starting at wing-back together is big (fairly certain the injuries happened after Tuchel got the boot). If the back three can hold firm those two can make chances all day. Joao Felix has been brilliant and just needs to adjust his shooting boots a touch to hit the target and not the bar. Sterling and Havertz are great finishers on their day also.” Godspeed, everyone, then, may the best team win. We’ll be off, at long last, in a couple of minutes.
Intermission
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The kick-off has been delayed until 8.10pm GMT. The Dortmund bus hit traffic en route to Stamford Bridge and turned up late. They’ve got here now, though, and are warming up on the pitch, having been given an extra few minutes to make themselves at home.
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Pre-match postbag o’pessimism. There aren’t too many ringing endorsements for Chelsea’s back line in it.
“Chelsea got so much talent. And then they start with Marc Cucurella. Dear me. He hasn’t played one good game for Chelsea” – Morten Skytte
“I am not feeling all that confident about that Chelsea back three. Neither Cucurella nor Koulibaly have set the world alight for Chelsea so far, though it’s nice to have James and Chilwell at wing-back again. I do think that if they hadn’t both been injured early in the season, Tuchel might still be at the helm, and Chelsea might be in the hunt for a top-four place. I also think it was a mistake not to register Badiashile for the Champions League; of all the players to come in in January, he’s the one who’s impressed me most” – Neal Butler
“Is this really the right game for Cucurella?” – Jeff Sax
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Four Chelsea players will miss the next match in Europe if booked tonight. Reece James, Kalidou Koulibaly, Mykhailo Mudryk and Conor Gallagher are all one yellow card away from a one-match suspension. Dortmund have two players doing the tippy toes along the disciplinary tightrope in Salih Özcan and Emre Can.
A cheery Graham Potter speaks to BT Sport. “It’s nice to have the win after the weekend … it felt like a good performance against Dortmund … we should have scored maybe but that’s where we’re at … we’re looking forward to playing well and hopefully going through … the most important thing is the team, the club, so my job is to help the team win … it’s not about me … we’ve got Reece [James] back tonight so that’s a plus … we lost Wesley Fofana in the home game here against Milan, and almost systematically since then have had players dropping out, so it’s been difficult to get stability … then you need a couple of games to get back to your top level when you get back, so that’s been a process we’ve had to endure … the spirit has been really good despite results … we want results to improve … we’re very privileged and grateful to be here … we can turn it round and we have to be positive.”
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Chelsea make four changes to the starting XI named for the first leg in Dortmund. Mateo Kovačić, Raheem Sterling, Marc Cucurella and Wesley Fofana are in; Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Mykhailo Mudryk and Hakim Ziyech drop to the bench, while Thiago Silva is injured.
Dortmund make two changes to the team that started in Germany. Alexander Meyer replaces Gregor Kobel in goal, while captain Marco Reus returns at the expense of first-leg goalscoring hero Karim Adeyemi, who is injured. Jude Bellingham stars alongside former Liverpool midfielder Emre Can, while erstwhile West Ham striker Sebastien Haller leads the line.
The teams
Chelsea: Kepa, James, Fofana, Koulibaly, Cucurella, Chilwell, Kovacic, Fernandez, Sterling, Havertz, Felix.
Subs: Bettinelli, Bergstrom, Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Chalobah, Mudryk, Zakaria, Ziyech, Gallagher, Chukwuemeka, Hall.
Borussia Dortmund: Meyer, Wolf, Sule, Schlotterbeck, Guerreiro, Can, Ozcan, Bellingham, Brandt, Reus, Haller.
Subs: Kobel, Unbehaun, Reyna, Dahoud, Hummels, Modeste, Malen, Meunier, Passlack, Rothe, Bynoe-Gittens, Coulibaly.
Referee: Danny Makkelie (Netherlands).
Your Chelsea side tonight! 🔵#UCL pic.twitter.com/n1zekhgzvN
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) March 7, 2023
🚨 BVB STARTING XI VS. CHELSEA 🚨 pic.twitter.com/z9TElmuO5Q
— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) March 7, 2023
Preamble
Three weeks ago this happened …
… and now Chelsea are fighting for their Champions League lives. Tonight’s game may even have a bearing on whether the club stay patient with Graham Potter, though perhaps that’s getting a bit melodramatic. Either way, a positive result shouldn’t be beyond Chelsea, who were impressive in the first leg despite defeat. Can the 2012 and 2021 champions make it through to this year’s quarters? Kick off is at 8pm GMT. It’s on!
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