Frankfurt, Germany: Ousmane Dembele, the highly touted French teenager, scored his first Bundesliga goal for Borussia Dortmund in a 5-1 rout of Wolfsburg on Tuesday.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored two goals but it was Dembele’s goal that broke Wolfsburg’s resistance.
The 19-year-old Dembele is considered one of the biggest talents in Europe and his goal in the 59th for a 3-1 lead came at the time when Dortmund was under pressure. Wolfsburg had just pulled a goal back and looked close to equalising when Dembele struck.
Raphael Guerreiro, another of Dortmund’s new signings who had scored the opening goal, fed substitute Gonzalo Castro with a through pass. Castro squared the ball to the onrushing Dembele for an easy finish.
Dembele, who had lost possession in a couple of promising situations before the goal, appeared to be slightly offside when he scored, according to television replays.
He also struck the post later in the game.
Aubameyang brought his season total to four goals in four matches and Lukasz Piszczek added the fifth in the 73rd minute. Dortmund now has outscored its opponents 17-1 in its last three matches in all competitions.
“Another bunch of goals,” Aubameyang said. “A good game, we are pleased. It was not easy at the start of the second half. If we keep playing like this, I don’t think anyone can hold us back.”
Elsewhere, Eintracht Frankfurt won 2-0 in Ingolstadt, Hambrurger SV slipped to another defeat by going down 1-0 at Freiburg and Darmstadt clinched a late equaliser to salvage a 1-1 draw with Hoffenheim at home.
Dortmund and Frankfurt pulled level on nine points with Bayern Munich and Hertha Berlin, which play each other on Wednesday.
Guerreiro put Dortmund ahead in the fourth, slotting home after a through ball from Marc Bartra. Aubameyang scored his first in the 17th, after collecting a throw-in to slot inside the far post.
Substitute Daniel Didavi scored in the 53rd as Wolfsburg stepped up the pressure at the start of the second half. And just as Wolfsburg was piling on the pressure, Dembele struck for the decisive lead.
“We played on another level today, Wolfsburg is stronger than the previous teams we’ve played,” Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel said.
Germany striker Mario Gomez squandered several chances for Wolfsburg, including one from about one metre out, as his team lost its first match of the season.
“We wasted too many chances,” Gomez said.
In other matches, Nils Petersen scored less than a minute after coming on as a substitute, tapping the ball home after Hamburg goalkeeper Rene Adler could not hold on to a shot by Vincenzo Grifo in the 70th.
Hamburg fell to its third straight defeat, the last two against promoted teams and has only one point from four matches. Coach Bruno Labbadia’s future looks bleak, especially since Hamburg’s next match is against Bayern Munich.
Eintracht confirmed its good start with goals from David Abraham in stoppage time of the first half and Bastian Oczipka in the 50th. Abraham connected with a header from Marco Fabian’s corner and Oczipka drilled home a powerful left-foot volley following a half-clearance from another corner.
Ingolstadt has only one point under new coach Markus Kauczinski.
Substitute Denys Oliinyk struck in the second minute of injury time to clinch the draw for Darmstadt. Hoffenheim had gone ahead through a goal by Andrej Kramaric in the 46th.
Hoffenheim has four draws from four matches.
German Bundesliga results on Tuesday:
VfL Wolfsburg 1 Borussia Dortmund 5
Ingolstadt 0 Eintracht Frankfurt 2
Darmstadt 1 Hoffenheim 1
Freiburg 1 Hamburg 0
