Going from man of the match to scapegoat in 10 seconds

Pascal Groß entered the Champions League match between Borussia Dortmund and Barcelona in the 73rd minute, but he was the game’s most impactful player. In an instant, he went from being his team’s hero to setting up his opponent’s winner.

Even though he’s 33 years old and slowing down, Groß has looked like a shrewd addition from Dortmund this year. He contributes about as little defensively as is possible for a deep-lying midfielder, but he is genuinely one of the world’s most effective passers. He’s been incredible in the Bundesliga, and even better in Champions League.

A couple minutes into his appearance, Ravi remarked in our work chat that he was already causing Barcelona problems with his passing. During Dortmund’s next attack, he assisted the equalizer. Groß ended the game with two more key passes, and he almost added a 4th.

But then Barca’s winner happened. The highlights of this game are well worth your time if you didn’t catch it on Wednesday. (UK version embedded, US version here, other countries I’m sorry UEFA are a bunch of weirdos about rights).

After changing the game so positively in favor of his team, Groß inexplicably passed the ball directly to Yamine Lamal, springing a counter-attack that Barcelona executed to perfection. For a player having such an excellent game — and season, and career — it was a shocking error. One that, unfortunately is likely to overshadow all of the good things he did in this match.

For some reason, many of the highlights from this game omit the play that preceded Barca’s winner, a Dortmund corner. The taker was Groß, and Dortmund ran an extremely successful corner routine. Felix Nmecha got free from his marker at the near post and had a clear shot at the winner. Groß’s delivery beat the near post defender and started dipping down immediately afterwards, but went about 10 centimeters over Nmecha’s head.

This is how close Dortmund were to pulling off a huge upset that would have all but secured their spot in the Champions League top 8 places, and how close Groß was to being the man of the match instead of the player who gave the game away.

I don’t have any rooting interest here, I enjoy both teams a lot. But I had my head in my hands like I was a Dortmund fan when I saw who gave the ball away for the winner. Football is so cruel.

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