Borussia Dortmund achieved their first victory of the Champions League after Wednesday to a 4-1 win over Athletic Bilbao.
Niko Kovac’s side scored twice on either side of Athletic’s goal to seal an emphatic victory and to expand their undefeated start to 2025-26.
There was a small goal -mouth campaign early in Signal Iduna Park before Dortmund broke the impasse in the 28th minute, with Daniel Svensson Karim Adeyemi’s Pacy Cross rotating up close.
Niklas Sule had tested Unai Simon remotely, but Dortmund found their second four minutes after the break when Carney Chukwuemeka sladed in from a tight corner on the left side of the box after a Mazy Run.
Gorka Guruzeta withdrew one for athletics in the 61st minute and took advantage of a failed clearance to drill home.
They were refused an equalizer six minutes later, after Robert Navarro beat Kobel with a nice Dink, only to be abolished.
Dortmund recovered their pillow with two goals in the 82nd minute, with the low drive of Marcel Sabitzer a major deflection from Guirassy to get the ball past the wrong foot Simon.
Julian Brandt then added some late shine to the score. Athletic lost the ball in midfield, and Maximilian Beerier split their defense with a ball before burning the right corner with its powerful strike.
That’s what you call a dub. pic.twitter.com/tdg8hppo24
– Borussia Dortmund (@blackyellow) October 1, 2025
Data Debrief: Guirassy Lightens Champions League stage
Dortmund is a force to take into account at home in Europe, and has now only lost one of their last 19 of such Champions League matches, and won twelve of them.
Guirassy played a major role on Wednesday with a goal and assistant, which means that he has now been directly involved in 20 goals in the competition since the beginning of last season (14 goals, six assists), with only Barcelona’s Raphinha (21) that totally improve that.
Dortmund, however, was impressed and scored four times of only 1.08 expected goals (XG), with athletics only collected 0.96 from their six attempts.
This defeat means that Ernesto Valverde has lost consecutive Champions League matches for the first time since November 2014 (three in a row during his previous enchantment with Athletic).
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