Donetsk: Borussia Dortmund took a step towards the Champions League quarter-finals by claiming a 2-2 draw against Shakhtar Donetsk at the Donbass Arena in the first leg of their round-of-16 tie.
Darijo Srna put the hosts ahead with a wonderful free kick, but Jurgen Klopp`s men soon hit back through Robert Lewandowski. Douglas Coasta looked to have given the hosts a slender advantage heading into the Signal Iduna Park leg, but Mats Hummels powered home a late header.
It was the visitors who took the early initiative, with Jakub `Kuba` Blaszczykowski having a couple of early efforts on goals.
First, the Poland winger tried an acrobatic overhead-kick after a badly-cleared free kick which went wide, before he dragged a shot across goal after being put through by Mario Gotze when he should have done better.
Dortmund continued to press. Another Gotze ball went to Lewandowski, who sent a tame header at Andriy Pyatov, and the striker had calls for a penalty when he went down under a shove from Srna.
Their period of pressure should have culminated in a goal, but they could not come any closer than on the 15-minute mark when Hummels sent a Gotze corner onto the bar, with Pyatov well beaten.
All the while, Shakhtar had looked dangerous on the break, and they gradually began to take control of the match, but without offering any real craft in the Dortmund half.
After 30 minutes, though, they were gifted the opener. Felipe Santana clumsily brought down Luiz Adriano around 25 yards from goal, and Srna stepped up to bend the ball into the top corner of the net.
The goal seemed to wake BVB up, and they soon set about in search of an equaliser. Again, Kuba sent in two speculative efforts, one straight at the keeper, the other fizzing wide.
In the end, though, it was a stroke of fortune which gave the Germans their goal. Gotze crossed from the right, and a complete mishit from Lewandowski took two defenders out of the game and allowed him to pass it into the corner.
The goal came three minutes before the break, but they almost undid their good work seconds later. A clumsy fumble from Roman Weidenfeller went straight to Luiz Adriano, but Marcel Schmelzer was there to clear if off the line.
After the break, both teams looked capable of grabbing the next goal. At one end, Marco Reus failed to wriggle free of two defenders, and saw his shot charged down, before Henrik Mkhitaryan had an effort blocked by Santana.
The two sides took it in turns to counter-attack, but their respective defences were standing firm, and were propelling away wave after wave.
That was until the 69th minute, when Hummels misjudged a long, high ball which fell to Costa, who took the ball down superbly and drove it left-footed beyond Weidenfeller.
Immediately after the goal, Dortmund should have equalised. Gotze darted into the penalty area, seizing on a sloppy defensive header, and squared it to Lewandowski, who somehow contrived to hook an effort wide, when he should have grabbed a second away goal.
At the other end, though, Shakhtar still posed a threat of their own. Indeed, they could have extended their lead when a delightful ball from Teixeria evaded everyone in the BVB box, including the hosts` attackers, before Yaroslav Rakitskiy drove a free kick well over the bar.
It appeared that the Ukrainians had done enough to take a slender advantage into the second leg, but with just a couple of minutes remaining, Schmelzer swung in a corner, and Hummels atoned for his earlier error by powering home a header, giving his side the advantage in the tie.
Goal.com
First Published: Thursday, February 14, 2013, 09:01