Post-Match Report
Adeyemi's clear commitment to BVB
Five goals in September for the Germany U21 national team, five goals and five assists in eight league games for Borussia Dortmund! He scored a hat-trick for the first time in a BVB jersey in the 7-1 win against Celtic (he previously scored four times for Salzburg). Whether the goals he netted to make it 2-1, 3-1 and 5-1 on Tuesday count as a hat-trick is a matter of interpretation.*
"I've set myself a target every season," he said shortly before midnight in the bowels of SIGNAL IDUNA PARK, before admitting: "Sometimes it hasn't worked out. I learn from that. I've needed a bit of time to learn. I haven't always had the best first halves of the season. Now things are different and, I'm trying to not just help the team in the second half of the season, but also in the first half. That's why I don't want to rest on my laurels." Turning to the journalists, he promised: "We can talk again at the end of the season about how many assists and goals I've got."
Karim Adeyemi is the first Dortmund player since Marco Reus in November 2016 (in the historic 8-4 win against Legia Warsaw) to notch up four scorer points in a Champions League game. Not even Erling Haaland managed that. Adeyemi got four points as he was the victim of the foul for the penalty that brought the score to 4-1. For a moment, he considered stepping up to take the penalty himself, but then he remembered 7 May 2023, when he also had two goals in a home game against VfL Wolfsburg but then missed a penalty. I thought to myself: I don't need that again."
Either way, he made Champions League history on Tuesday. Karim Adeyemi scored his tenth, eleventh and twelfth goals in Europe's elite competition and, at the age of 22 years and 257 days, is the first German to score ten (or more) goals in this competition before his 23rd birthday.
This may well arouse the interest of other clubs. Adeyemi was asked about this after the game: "We're in October now?" he asked rhetorically, going on to add: "I can't move in October, can I?" What followed was a clear profession of faith for Borussia Dortmund: "Nothing's happening in the winter break! I feel super comfortable here in Dortmund. I've been a big fan of the club since I was a little boy. I like playing here."
Boris Rupert
* In the German-speaking world, a "hat-trick" is when a player scores three goals in one half of a game, with no other player (not even a player from the same team) scoring between the first and third goals. (Source: Wikipedia)