Bundesliga
Jadon Sancho: "We had to put on a performance before the PSG game"
Jadon Sancho says Borussia Dortmund’s emphatic 4-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt is the ideal tonic ahead of their UEFA Champions League last-16 first leg with Paris Saint-Germain.
Dortmund were in unforgiving mood at the Signal Iduna Park on Friday, with Sancho one of four different goalscorers for Lucien Favre’s men.
The England international, 19, followed up Lukasz Piszczek’s first-half opener with his career-best 13th goal of the season, schooling Stefan Ilsanker and finishing low and hard to the right of former PSG goalkeeper Kevin Trapp.
He was heavily involved in the build-up to Dortmund’s third as Erling Haaland helped himself to his eighth goal in just five league matches for BVB, before Raphael Guerreiro completed the rout with 16 minutes of normal time remaining.
“We knew today we going to be a tough game, especially after losing last week against Leverkusen,” Sancho told bundesliga.com after the game. “So we just had to put on a performance before the Champions League, and we did that well today.”
Watch: Jadon Sancho on Dortmund’s four-star win
Sancho also reserved praise for the Dortmund fans, specifically those pack inside the Signal Iduna Park’s acclaimed Yellow Wall standing terrace. The spectators put together a stunning pre-match choreo depicting some of the Ruhr district city’s most famous landmarks, along with the words ‘Grosse Stadt Dortmund, mein Traum!’ (‘big city Dortmund, my dream!’).
“It was very nice to come out and see the Yellow Wall,” Sancho said. “What the fans did before before the game is very impressive. It’s such a great thing.”
Defending Ligue 1 champions PSG will experience the allure of Dortmund’s south stand first-hand on Tuesday. The French club’s coach Thomas Tuchel knows it well, having presided over runners-up and third-placed finishes whilst at the BVB helm between June 2015 and May 2017. He also oversaw the club’s 2016/17 DFB Cup win.
And while PSG won all but one of their six games in this season's group stage, they face a formidable task in Dortmund. The Black-Yellows are the only remaining Bundesliga club yet to lose a competitive match on home soil this term, while Sancho is the only player across Europe’s top five leagues to register double figures for goals and assists (13 apiece). He is also the first Dortmund player since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (2017) to score in six consecutive home league games.
"Borussia Dortmund are a team with plenty of quality players, but Sancho is special," warned PSG star striker Neymar, as reported by Sky Sports. "Jadon is a player that I really like to watch play, and he is a great player with plenty of quality. We all know how difficult it will be for us at Dortmund."