Champions League
Fan deaths mar Dortmund draw
2013-02-14 00:04
Donetsk - Germany defender Mats Hummels's late
header gave Borussia Dortmund a Champions League lifeline with a 2-2
draw at Shakhtar Donetsk in Wednesday's last 16, first-leg, clash.
However,
Dortmund's impressive result will be overshadowed by the deaths of five
fans and 12 injured when a plane from Odessa, south Ukraine, carrying
45 people crashed while landing at Donetsk airport, just hours before
kick-off.
A minute's silence was held as a mark of respect.
Dortmund
twice came from behind and were heading towards their first European
defeat of the season before centre-back Hummels powered home from a
corner, three minutes from time.
Donetsk captain Darijo Srna's
free-kick was cancelled out by a first-half equaliser from Dortmund
striker Robert Lewandowski before Brazilian Douglas Costa restored
Shakhtar's advantage 22 minutes from time.
Hummels' header puts
Dortmund in pole position to reach the quarter-finals for the second-leg
at Borussia's Signal Iduna Park stadium in a fortnight.
Having
beaten Real Madrid, Manchester City and Ajax to win Group D, Dortmund
came perilously close to joining current holders Chelsea in suffering
defeat at Shakhtar's notoriously tricky Donbass Arena.
Dortmund made a bright start when Hummels clattered the woodwork with a bullet header from a corner with only 17 minutes gone.
Donetsk
took the lead when Srna smashed a free-kick over the wall and into the
top right-hand corner with Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller
grasping at air on 31 minutes.
Borussia responded and equalised
ten minutes later when a Mario Goetze cross wrong-footed Lewandowski and
the Donetsk defence, but the Poland star responded quickest to slot his
shot home.
Donetsk went back into the lead when Costa scored a dream goal on 62 minutes just six minutes after coming off the bench.
Both
Hummels and Germany team-mate Marcel Schmelzer failed to deal with a 40
metre pass out of defence from Donetsk defender Yaroslav Rakytskyy, but
Costa controlled the ball with one touch, then slammed his shot home
with the next.
At the other end, Lewandowski went close moments
later as the German champions stepped up the pace in a bid to draw level
again.
With time almost up, Schmelzer's pin-point accurate
corner from the left was met in the middle by Hummels with the Donetsk
defence nowhere to be seen to give Dortmund a deserved draw.
Scorers: Shakhtar Donetsk: Darijo Srna 31, Douglas Costa 68
Borussia Dortmund: Robert Lewandowski 41, Mats Hummels 87
Halftime: 1-1
Teams:
Shakhtar Donetsk: 30-Andriy Pyatov; 33-Darijo Srna, 44-Yaroslav
Rakitskiy, 27-Dmytro Chygrinskiy, 26-Razvan Rat; 7-Fernandinho, 3-Tomas
Hubschman; 29-Alex Teixeira (11-Eduardo 84), 22-Henrik Mkhitaryan,
28-Taison (20-Douglas Costa 62); 9-Luiz Adriano
Borussia
Dortmund: 1-Roman Weidenfeller; 26-Lukasz Piszczek, 27-Felipe Santana,
15-Mats Hummels, 29-Marcel Schmelzer; 6-Sven Bender, 5-Sebastian Kehl;
16-Jakub Blaszczykowski (7-Moritz Leitner 80), 10-Mario Goetze, 11-Marco
Reus (23-Julian Schieber 90+1); 9-Robert Lewandowski
Referee: Howard Webb (England)