Bundesliga
Mats Hummels: MD6’s Man of the Matchday
Despite an almost embarrassing wealth of attacking talent on the field, Borussia Dortmund had to rely on a defender to see them break their Bielefeld hoodoo on Halloween, with a trick and a treat from Mats Hummels.
A week on from his emotional first Revierderby goal, Hummels got the rush from scoring once again on Matchday 6, in a rare double dose.
The first brace of Hummels' Bundesliga career came almost 11 years ago, only days after his 21st birthday and at a time when Jude Bellingham, his current creative team-mate, was just settling into primary school.
A year later, Hummels scored in consecutive league fixtures for the first time. The almost 32-year-old has just done that again, bettering his single-goal hauls from each of the past four seasons in one afternoon.
Whoever said you are over the footballing hill when your age starts with the figure three?
"I doubt he's going to turn into a goalgetter, but he's done a really good job - really good," said Julian Brandt to bundesliga.com. "It was an important brace. I think his goal against Schalke did him a lot of good and maybe he's now on a streak for the first time in his life - we'll see.
"Either way, he's a very important figure for us at the back and he's doing a really good job right now."
Watch: Delaney's delight at the Mats Hummels show
With Dan-Axel Zagadou, Nico Schulz and Marcel Schmelzer all sidelined, now is a time when the Westphalians really need Hummels' sterling defensive performances, and beyond the eye-catching statistic in any football game, more often than not reserved for forwards, Hummels ensured he also stood out for what he is paid for on Saturday.
With 15 tackles won, he was the most reliable challenger on the field, while his pass success rate this season stands at a mightily impressive 93 per cent.
"Mats was very good today, not only scoring goals," Thomas Delaney told bundesliga.com, keen to stress his team-mate's all-round contribution to 15 points from six games which sees Dortmund head into the first Bundesliga Klassiker of the season next weekend in a tie of top spot with their next opponents Bayern Munich.
"I don't think you should judge a defender by how many goals he scores, but he did very well, taking the goals away," added Delaney. "Of course with two goals - the match-winner - he stepped up today, really."
Dortmund will need Hummels to step up again next Saturday when Bayern visit the Signal Iduna Park, but with the German defender not only taking the strain off his goalkeeper Roman Bürki with his defensive duties, but also ensuring Erling Haaland can take a rest from the goalscoring duties, the Westphalians head into that encounter with broad shoulders, and a defender who, if anything, is at the top of the hill and far from over it.