Harbinger Of Glory

Meunier collected the ball from where it had gone out and held it for a moment, reading the shape in front of him, before tossing it into the path of Hummels, who wasn’t being marked.

The latter took it and began moving without breaking stride.

The distance ahead of him wasn’t negligible, but somehow with each stride of his, he made it look less and less.

As he came forward with the ball at his feet, Will Keane set his sights on him, ready to intercept, but, as he would know a few moments later, that wasn’t the right decision.

The defender bided his time, and just as Will Kean got close enough, he shifted the ball away from the challenge with a drop of the shoulder.

Moving stealthily from behind Will Keane, Reyes moved to close out the passing lane after seeing Hummels shape to play it, but he had been played by the veteran defender too because the ball never came.

Instead, Hummels dragged it back onto his left foot before he continued his run.

”Mats Hummels,” the commentator said, ”and he is absolutely strolling through this.

The German, the Bayern legend, is showing here why he’s still very much at the top of the conversation when it comes to the best ball-playing defenders in Europe.

Keane couldn’t get near him, Reyes tried to cut it off, and he’s gone past him, too. Dortmund are now on the move.”

After escaping the Wigan attempt, Hummels lifted his head and sent the ball travelling over the Wigan midfield line and towards the left flank.

There, Sancho received it out wide as Darikwa moved across to close him down.

Sancho, despite the onrushing Darikwa, coming like a train, remained calm with the poise of someone who had been in the situation and had escaped time and time again.

After making up his mind, he rolled the ball and let it run across his body before he shifted direction once, then again, until suddenly, Darikwa’s momentum went the wrong way.

Before the fullback had corrected, Sancho went through the gap and into space.

”Jadon Sancho,” the co-commentator came through again.

”On loan from Manchester United, but there is nothing loan about that performance. He is simply too quick for Darikwa there, the veteran just cannot live with that change of pace, and Sancho has bought himself room down the left.”

The cross afterwards came in whipped with pace and dip, finding the space between the defenders, and in that space, Fullkrug arrived at it with the timing of a man who made a living on thriving in such situations.

He rose above O’Shea cleanly, his frame getting over the ball before sending his header firmly downward, but the effort, despite its danger, didn’t seem to threaten Ben Amos, who got both hands to it and held it before pulling it into his chest.

Following that effort, a stretch of applause rolled down from the upper tiers of the stand as it always did before infecting the crowd in the lower tiers as the Dortmund fans suddenly began to sing.

”Ben Amos,” the commentator said.

”And he was right on it. Fullkrug got good contact, directed it well, but the Wigan goalkeeper was positioned correctly, and he’s gathered it cleanly. That is the first real attempt at the game, and it comes to nothing. Still, Wigan will be relieved.”

Amos stood with the ball and looked at the Dortmund players who had flooded into the Wigan half and for a moment held it, reading the picture, and then he tossed it out to Max Power, who brought it down, shielded it while the shape around him reorganised, and they began moving it forward again.

After that, Dortmund did what they did best, which was press and on the other hand, Wigan managed it, imperfectly but without catastrophe.

It was a back-and-forth, but that tempo of the game allowed Wigan to try attacking sequences of their own.

Reyes, the main creative hub of Wigan, was the one who kept threatening to change the texture of things.

After a foul on James McClea, he bent a free kick from twenty-five yards that had the trajectory of something dangerous right up until Kobel plucked it from the air with the economy of a goalkeeper who hadn’t been bothered by what he’d seen.

Minutes later, he slid a pass through the defensive line and into Ezra’s run.

The angle was perfect, same with the weight of the pass on the ball.

Yet after Ezra took it in stride and shot, the ball rolled with the flat harmlessness of a struck ball that had lost its conviction and gathered itself into Kobel’s hands.

On the other end, Dortmund went close enough three times to make the scoreline feel precarious.

A penalty appeal when Darikwa’s arm met the ball in a way the referee examined and then dismissed, which satisfied nobody completely.

Followed by Sabitzer driving in from deep, with his effort ending in a shot that kept Ben Amos, after pushing it away with his fingertips on the ground for a moment before he got back up.

The third effort saw Fullkrug again arriving at the end of a long ball from deep and hitting it hard from outside the box, to which Ben Amos once again got a strong hand to it and diverted it wide.

”Thirty-two minutes played here at the Signal Iduna Park,” the commentator said, ”and we have had no shortage of action, but the scoreline remains goalless.

Wigan have defended with a good deal of organisation, Amos has been excellent in goal, and Reyes has shown enough going forward to suggest this won’t be a comfortable evening for the Dortmund defence whenever he gets hold of it.

But the hosts have had the better of the chances, and Wigan will know they’ve ridden their luck on at least two occasions. Thirteen minutes or so remaining in the first half, plus whatever the referee decides to add.”