Patience the key to Monaco win, say Dortmund

Patience, patience, patience. Almost to a man Dortmund repeated the phrase after their 3-0 home win over Monaco in the Champions League group stage on Wednesday.

A 0-0 scoreline at halftime, after Dortmund had dominated, could have led to panic. Instead Lucien Favre's outfit took their time to find the openings with the introduction of Jacob Bruun Larsen having an immediate impact with his 51st minute goal. Paco Alcacer and Marco Reus then made the game safe.

''The second half was a lot better than the first half. We were a lot better in our pressing, we had more confidence. We wanted to remain patient, that was really important," the coach opined.

The confidence inherent in biding your time was rarely on view at Dortmund last season. Everyone looked stressed, in a rush. Favre has changed the mindset and apparently been banging on so much about the P- word that his players parrot it at will.

''The key to the win was patience," said Reus.

"The first half was difficult. When we had the ball, Monaco played very deep in defense, they really closed down the space with their five man defensive line. We had difficulties creating chances but we kept our patience."

There it is again, twice. Roman Bürki even got in on the act.   

''We kept our patience. Our coach kept telling us during half-time that it would be difficult. We made things somewhat hard for ourselves in the first half. Once we got the 1-0 lead, everything started to go our way.''

It is two wins from two in Europe now and after their first victory at Brugge came via an 85th-minute fluke from Christian Pulisic, patience is very much paying off.