Weak start for German teams
The first international matches for the Bundesliga teams in 2013 did not go out too well. Borussia Dortmund surely have achieved the best result as they drew 2-2 in Donezk. BVB can look confident towards the home match in three weeks, but Hanover, Gladbach, Stuttgart and Leverkusen all will have to fear a possible elimination as they got more or less bad results.
Libor Kozak scored the equalizer in last second in Gladbach to set the score to 3-3 and put his team in a very good position heading into the second leg in Rom.
The five German teams that played in international competition for the first time in 2013 had all probably expected more. Borussia Dortmund´s 2-2-draw in Donezk was surely the best result looking at the second leg but the four teams in Europa League will all more or less have to fear elimination in the round of the last 32.
Borussia Dortmund showed a strong performance against Shakhtar Donezk being the more active competitor of the two. Donezk however scored the first goal after a direct free kick that has to be titled saveable. Ten minutes later Robert Lewandowski equalized the score board. BVB got off to a better start into second half as well but Donezk once again scored out of the blue after a positional error of Mats Hummels. He equalized his mistake and the score board minutes before the end after a corner kick from Marcel Schmelzer. Dortmund are in a good spot heading into second leg in three weeks after scoring twice on foreign grounds.
Europa-League-teams with bad results
The four teams in Europa league will have very difficult tasks heading into their second legs in a couple of weeks. Bayer 04 Leverkusen lost their home game against Benfica with 0-1 looking forward to a very hard match. Hanover 96 despite being 1-0 in the lead lost 1-3 against Anzhi Makhachkala being one step away from elimination right now.
Borussia Moenchengladbach only drew in their home game against Lazio Roma. After being 1-0 in Front, than 1-2 behind and just second before the end being 3-2 in the lead after Juan Arango´s direct free kick Gladbach eventually got the equalizer from Roma in minute 94. A 3-3 on home turf is not the best base to travel to Italy in three weeks. VFB Stuttgart also only drew 1-1 in the home game against Genk after getting the very late equalizer as well.
