Borussia Dortmund comfortably secured their place in the Champions League last 16 with a goalless draw against Sporting Lisbon on Wednesday, sealing a 3-0 aggregate victory.
Despite Serhou Guirassy missing a second-half penalty, Dortmund were rarely tested by Sporting and cruised through with little trouble. Last season’s finalists will now face either Aston Villa or Lille in the next round.
“It was a controlled performance,” Dortmund coach Niko Kovac said after the match. “In the second half, we missed the penalty and Giovanni Reyna hit the post. We should have won, but in the end, we’re through. We’re working on taking our goalscoring opportunities, and I believe in the lads.”
For Sporting, the task of overturning last week’s 3-0 defeat was always daunting, especially with a squad weakened by injuries. Guirassy, Pascal Gross, and Karim Adeyemi had all found the net in the first leg, leaving the Portuguese side with a steep hill to climb.
Dortmund controlled much of the match in cold conditions in Germany, with Marcel Sabitzer coming closest to breaking the deadlock with a powerful shot from distance that Sporting goalkeeper Rui Silva did well to save.
The visitors’ hopes of a dramatic comeback were further dashed after the break when Dortmund were awarded a penalty. Silva was judged to have fouled Adeyemi in the box following a well-weighted pass from Nico Schlotterbeck that split Sporting’s defense. However, Guirassy’s well-struck penalty was expertly saved by Silva, who dived low to his right to keep the score level.
Reyna, who came on as a substitute, nearly made an immediate impact with a shot that struck the post, but Dortmund’s attacking play was relatively subdued overall. Sporting, for their part, offered little in terms of offensive threat, failing to register a single shot on target throughout the match.
In the end, Sporting lacked the necessary urgency to turn the tie in their favour, and Dortmund advanced to the next stage with minimal difficulty, securing a straightforward passage to the Champions League last 16.
