BERLIN: Borussia Dortmund central defender Mats Hummels scored twice, including an 87th minute goal, to guide last season’s Bundesliga runners-up to a nervous 4-2 win at Freiburg on Saturday.

Dortmund, who take on Paris St Germain in the Champions League group stage next week, have not enjoyed a strong start to the season and had managed just one win in their previous three league games.

Dortmund took an 11th minute lead through the 34-year-old Hummels but instead of putting more pressure on the hosts they were more interested in protecting their lead.

They paid the price in first half stoppage time with Freiburg scoring twice to turn the game on its head.

Lucas Hoeler first headed past keeper Gregor Kobel to cut the deficit in the second minute of stoppage time and then Nicolas Hoefler nodded in for the lead with the last move of the first half.

The visitors bounced back after the break and levelled on the hour, with substitute Niclas Fuellkrug sending Donyell Malen through and the Dutchman slotting in for his third goal of the season.

With Freiburg down to 10 men following the dismissal of Hoefler with a red card, Dortmund poured forward.

Hummels slid in to put them back in front after a lucky bounce in the 87th and substitute Marco Reus drilled in their fourth in stoppage time for his first goal of the season.

Dortmund are seventh on the table with eight points.

Elsewhere, RB Leipzig moved into third place on nine with a 3-0 win over Augsburg while VfB Stuttgart are also on nine after a Serhou Guirassy hat-trick gave them a 3-1 victory at Mainz 05.

Union Berlin suffered a setback ahead of Wednesday’s trip to face Real Madrid in their debut Champions League campaign, losing 2-1 at Wolfsburg.

In Saturday’s late game, Bochum’s Kevin Stoeger scored a second-half penalty to share the spoils against Eintracht Frankfurt in a 1-1 draw.

Meanwhile, goals from Andrej Kramaric, Florian Grillitsch and Maximilian Beier took Hoffenheim to a 3-1 win at Cologne.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2023