BORUSSIA DORTMUND’S NEW caretaker coach Edin Terzic made a winning start Tuesday after club captain Marco Reus netted a late winner to seal a 2-1 victory at Werder Bremen.
The 38-year-old Terzic, the club’s assistant manager since 2018, replaced Lucien Favre, who was sacked Sunday less than 24 hours after a 5-1 thrashing at home by Stuttgart.
“It’s always important to come back with a win after such a brutal defeat,” match-winner Reus told Sky.
“After a change of coach, the team knows it has let itself down.
“We were up against it and hopefully we have got ourselves on the right track.”
Terzic has a contract for the rest of the season and inspired Dortmund to their first win in four league games while Bremen now have four straight defeats.
“It was important we showed a reaction,” said Terzic, who was also Slaven Bilic’s assistant coach at West Ham from 2015-17.
“We lost a few balls in areas where we can’t afford to do that, so there are lots of things to work on.”
Dortmund took the lead in Bremen as Raphael Guerreiro was fastest to stab home with 14 minutes gone after Jadon Sancho had a shot charged down.
Bremen equalised on 28 minutes when Josh Sargent pounced on a mistake by Dortmund defender Manuel Akanji and the ball was worked to Kevin Moehwald who fired home.
Akanji made amends when he won the penalty from which Reus scored at the second attempt 12 minutes from time after Jiri Pavlenka saved the initial spot-kick.
The away win lifts Dortmund to fourth, three points behind league leaders Bayer Leverkusen, who are at Cologne on Wednesday.
Union, who host Dortmund on Friday, were held to a 2-2 draw at VfB Stuttgart, whose two-metre tall striker Sasa Kalajdzic came off the bench to score two late goals.
Union were 2-0 up with five minutes left thanks to goals by defender Marvin Friedrich and Liverpool loanee Taiwo Awoniyi.
However Kalajdzic scored with a header, then chested down and fired home, his shot surviving scrutiny for a handball from the VAR, to claim a point.
Hertha Berlin remain in mid-table after their goalless draw at second-from-bottom Mainz.
Earlier, Borussia Moenchengladbach captain Lars Stindl completed a hat-trick with an equaliser in the fifth minute of added time to snatch a point in their 3-3 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt.
Stindl’s late heroics saved a point at Frankfurt, but Gladbach, who have drawn Manchester City in the last 16 of the Champions League, are winless in their last five games in all competitions.
After Stindl opened the scoring by curling in a 14th minute free-kick, Frankfurt roared back with three unanswered goals including two by Portugal striker Andre Silva.
Leading 3-1, Frankfurt played the last 10 minutes with 10 men after captain David Abraham was sent off for a second booking.
With 90 minutes almost up, Gladbach won a penalty and Stindl stepped up to convert. Then he netted a last-gasp header to seal the draw.
The point leaves Gladbach eighth, one place and four points ahead of Frankfurt.
