Borussia Dortmund won the local derby against VfL Bochum 3-1. Niclas Füllkrug, who scored three times, will benefit from the next BVB win.

VfL Bochum kept the Revierduell at Borussia Dortmund open until the final phase. In the end, the underdog in the neighboring city was unable to win a point. BVB beat VfL 3-1.

Niclas Füllkrug scored all three of Dortmund’s goals. “We often lacked consistency in the first half of the season. Now it feels very good to get the results,” the national striker said afterwards on DAZN after the third win in the third game after the winter break. “We scored three goals again and only conceded one, even if we would have liked to have kept a clean sheet. This gives us confidence.”

Füllkrug put BVB in front early on with a converted penalty (7th minute) and scored again in the final minute to seal the win. “If you concede a penalty so early on and then another one right at the end, it’s difficult to get anything out of the game,” said Bochum midfielder Patrick Osterhage. “We didn’t play badly and put up a good fight. Despite going a goal down early on, we stuck to our game plan.”

And the VfL was rewarded for this shortly before the half-time whistle. BVB defender Nico Schlotterbeck headed a cross from Osterhage into his own goal. The score remained 1-1 until the 72nd minute, when Füllkrug gave the home side the lead with a header.

VfL also had its moments and even came close to taking the lead. “We made some poor decisions when trying to play the final pass,” said Osterhage ruefully. Matus Bero was an example of this. The Bochum player was running freely towards the goal and only needed to lay the ball off to Christopher Antwi-Adjei, who was running alongside, but he took too long and was stopped in time.

“If we’d kept our cool and made it 2-1, it would have been a really great away game,” said Kevin Stöger. Despite the defeat, the Bochum coach praised his team for ‘a lot of good ball wins’ in defense. At the same time, Stöger put his finger on the wound: ”It’s extremely important that we score more goals.”

In the three matches after the winter break, VfL only managed to score three times. Against Bremen (1:1) and Stuttgart (1:0), that was enough to get the points. But not against BVB.