Christian Pulisic scores but Borussia Dortmund's title dream keeps slipping away
Christian Pulisic scored his third goal of the Bundesliga season on Saturday but it wasn’t enough to give Borussia Dortmund the three points it desperately needed to keep pace with German leaders Bayern Munich.
Instead, Dortmund was forced to settle for a 2-2 tie at Werder Bremen. The Black and Yellow now trails Bayern — which beat relegated Hannover earlier Saturday — by four points with two games remaining.
Pulisic’s strike opened the scoring. It came on a brilliant individual run just over five minutes into the contest:
CHRISTIAN PULISIC!!!
He scores his 3rd goal of the season and puts Dortmund on top just 6 minutes into the match 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/ZQAxepxTU3— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) May 4, 2019
The visitors were rolling when Paco Alcácer made it 2-0 deep in the first half. But the game went sideways for BVB during a five minute spell that began in the 70th minute.
Bremen manager Florian Kohfeldt looked like a genius when both of his substitutes, Kevin Mohwald and 40-year-old Claudio Pizarro, scored to even things up at two.
With the clock ticking toward the final whistle and both teams going for the win, Pulisic had another golden opportunity to be the hero. This time, the American pulled a half-shot, half-cross across the face of Jiri Pavlenka’s net. It was as close as Dortmund would get.
Bayern is now the clear favorite to win its seventh consecutive German title. Barring a major slip up by the Bavarians in either of their last two games, at RB Leipzig and at home to Eintracht Frankfurt, Dortmund, which had a huge lead on its chief rival earlier this season, will settle for a runner-up medal for the fourth time in the last seven seasons.
Dortmund meets Fortuna Dusseldorf and Borussia Monchengladbach in its last two matches. BVB was the last team to win the Bundesliga before Bayern went on its current run in 2012.