Jude Bellingham's latest transfer audition will likely be seen as a disappointing one as he was unable to guide Borussia Dortmund into the Champions League quarter-finals. Despite holding the advantage coming into the second leg, Chelsea turned the tie on its head with two goals either side of half time to seal a spot in the next round.
Karim Adeyemi had handed Dortmund a one-goal lead but a number of things went wrong in the following few weeks for the German club. The weekend after his goal Adeyemi picked up a hamstring injury severe enough for him to miss the second leg.
First-choice goalkeeper Gregor Kobel was also confirmed to be missing the game through injury and on the day of the clash Dortmund preparations were affected as the team bus got stuck in traffic with kick off subsequently delayed by ten minutes. If that wasn't enough already, Edin Terzic then lost Julian Brandt to injury after just four minutes
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"Adeyemi, Brandt and also our goalie (Kobel) - these are the three players who have been in form in recent weeks," Terzic admitted after the game when asked about the impact of that trio of injuries. "That’s also part of the game and we adapted well. Gio [Reyna] came in and took over the position and we had enough quality in the team and that’s the good thing."
Nonetheless, Chelsea were also dealing with injury issues and there was certainly enough quality in the Dortmund ranks available to get the job done, as pointed out by Terzic. Dortmund may still feel hard done by though as Chelsea's second goal caused significant controversy.
Early in the second half, VAR intervened in a hand ball incident with Marius Wolf adjudged to have handled a Ben Chilwell cross. After taking a look at the monitor, on pitch official Danny Makkelie awarded a spot-kick but the drama did not stop there.
Kai Havertz initially struck the post from 12 yards but his slow and staggered run-up had led to a handful of Dortmund players encroaching into the penalty area. Havertz was therefore allowed to re-take the spot-kick and this time he made no mistake.
With that goal ultimately being the reason Dortmund were knocked out, Bellingham took umbrage with the decisions for two key reasons.
He told BT Sport: "From where I was it was really close, I’m not really sure what more he [Wolf] can do." Bellingham was then shown a close-up replay of the incident. "I mean yeh, it’s a yard or two away, I’m not so sure," he admitted. "I don’t want to get in trouble, I’ve paid enough to them lot so that in itself was disappointing and the fact they’ve had a retake is a joke.
"I think for every penalty, especially for one with such a slow run-up, there’s going to be people encroaching into the box by a yard or so but that’s the game I suppose, he’s made a decision and we’ll have to live with it."
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