Half-time talk sparked our comeback win, says Dortmund's Mats Hummels
Mats Hummels said a frank half-time team talk helped Borussia Dortmund come from two goals down to beat Inter Milan 3-2 in the Champions League yesterday morning (Singapore time), thanks to Achraf Hakimi second-half double.
Antonio Conte's Inter dominated the first half at Signal Iduna Park, as Lautaro Martinez put the Italian side ahead after just five minutes before Matias Vecino added a second just before the break.
However, Dortmund made their superior possession count after the break as Hakimi, who turned 21 on Monday, led the charge with two second-half goals either side of Julian Brandt's equaliser.
"Inter were very clinical in the first half. They scored twice from two chances," said Hummels, who was beaten for pace by Martinez for the opening goal.
"At the interval, we said that we needed to continue the way we had done so before, but we had to create more chances.
"We left them little room to breathe after the break and were really strong in the second half."
However, the veteran centre-back admitted being surprised by the scale of the fightback, saying: "I didn't expect that things would turn out quite this well."
The result leaves Dortmund second in Group F, a point behind leaders Barcelona, who they face at the Nou Camp in three weeks.
Inter are third in the group, three points behind Dortmund, before their next game at Slavia Prague.
Dortmund coach Lucien Favre, 62, said he made it clear at half-time a fightback was still on.
"I told them that if we got back to 2-1, anything was possible," said the Swiss.
"We had a lot of possession, put a lot of tempo into our game, prevented them from counter-attacking and that was the key... It was a crazy match to watch."
A disappointed Conte cited Inter's lack of squad depth as the reason for their collapse.
"We are sorry for this defeat, but I cannot ask much more of my players because they are working really hard," he said.
"We made some mistakes in planning because we cannot play in two competitions with such a small squad." - AFP
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