Marco Rose’s Borussia Dortmund beat Oliver Glasner’s Eintracht Frankfurt in their opening game of the 2021/22 Bundesliga season, 5-2. Meanwhile, in France, Paris Saint-Germain got the better of Strasbourg in the absence of their latest signing Lionel Messi’s.
Erling Haaland scored two and assisted two as Borussia Dortmund beat Eintracht Frankfurt 5-2 in their season opener. The Norwegian was in scintillating form and combined excellently with Marco Reus to put his side on top in the first half. Haaland finished the game off in the second half with his second goal of the night.
Reus opened the scoring on the night, taking a pass from Haaland in his stride before finishing past Kevin Trapp in the opposing goal. Frankfurt, however, hit back and equalized when Felix Passlack inadvertently diverted the ball past his goalkeeper in the 27th minute.
Five minutes later, Dortmund were back in front; Haaland found Thorgan Hazard in space before the Belgian squeezed his shot past Trapp from a tight angle. The Norwegian goal-machine got his first goal of the game in the 34th minute, pouncing upon a mistake by Stefan Ilsanker before finishing calmly.
Glasner made wholesale substitutions at half-time but to minimal effect as Dortmund grabbed their fourth shortly after the restart through Giovanni Reyna. Haaland completed the rout in the 70th minute when he scored his second of the match, while Jens Petter Hauge scored on his debut for Frankfurt to make the score 5-2.
In France, Paris Saint-Germain paraded their new quintet in front of a packed Parc des Princes, in lieu of actual silverware. Out of the five, only Achraf Hakimi and Georginio Wijnaldum started the game against Strasbourg, while Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos, and Gianluigi Donnarumma returned to the stands.
The Parisians raced into a three-goal lead by the 27th minute with goals from Mauro Icardi, Kylian Mbappe, and Julian Draxler. The opposition gave Mauricio Pochettino’s side cause for concern in the second half when they cut the deficit down to one. However, Pablo Sarabia put the game beyond doubt in the 86th minute, five minutes after Alexander Djiku received his marching orders. PSG held on to win the match 4-2.
