Borussia Dortmund 4-1 Athletic Bilbao: Guirassy evokes emphatic victory

Borussia Dortmund earned their first win of the Champions League after cruising to a 4-1 victory over Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday.

Niko Kovac’s facet scored twice on both facet of Athletic’s purpose to seal an emphatic win and prolong their unbeaten begin to 2025-26.

There was little goalmouth motion early on at Sign Iduna Park earlier than Dortmund broke the impasse within the twenty eighth minute, with Daniel Svensson turning Karim Adeyemi’s pacy cross in from shut vary.

Niklas Sule had examined Unai Simon from distance, however Dortmund discovered their second 4 minutes after the break when Carney Chukwuemeka slotted in from a decent angle on the left of the field after a mazy run.

Gorka Guruzeta pulled one again for Athletic within the 61st minute, taking advantage of a failed clearance to drill residence.

They had been denied an equaliser six minutes later, after Robert Navarro beat Kobel with a beautiful dink, just for it to be chalked off.

Dortmund restored their two-goal cushion within the 82nd minute, with Marcel Sabitzer’s low drive taking an enormous deflection off Guirassy to take the ball previous the wrong-footed Simon.

Julian Brandt then added some late gloss to the scoreline. Athletic misplaced the ball in midfield, and Maximilian Beier break up their defence with a by way of ball earlier than Brandt picked out the bottom-right nook along with his highly effective strike.

Now that’s what you name a DUB. pic.twitter.com/tdG8hpPO24

— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) October 1, 2025

Knowledge Debrief: Guirassy lights up Champions League stage

Dortmund are a power to be reckoned with on residence soil in Europe, and have now misplaced simply one among their final 19 such Champions League matches, profitable twelve of them.

Guirassy performed an enormous function on Wednesday with a purpose and help, which means he has now been immediately concerned in 20 targets within the competitors because the begin of final season (14 targets, six assists), with solely Barcelona’s Raphinha (21) bettering that whole.

Dortmund impressed although, scoring 4 instances from simply 1.08 anticipated targets (xG), with Athletic solely mustering 0.96 from their six makes an attempt.

This defeat means Ernesto Valverde has misplaced consecutive Champions League video games for the primary time since November 2014 (three in a row throughout his earlier spell with Athletic).