Borussia Dortmund 2-1 Real Betis: Fábio Silva turns scorer and provider to end Betis's unbeaten Champions League run

Borussia Dortmund ended Real Betis's unbeaten start to the Champions League league phase with a 2-1 win at Signal Iduna Park, a game that stayed scoreless for just under an hour before three goals in twenty minutes decided it. Fábio Silva was at the centre of both Dortmund goals — scoring the opener himself, then setting up the winner — in a result that pulls Dortmund level on points with the Spanish side in the 36-team standings.

The breakthrough came four minutes into the second half, Fábio Silva finishing to put Dortmund 1-0 up. Betis responded on the hour mark and a few minutes beyond it: Aitor Ruibal, on from the bench, levelled in the 67th minute after a pass from Abde Ezzalzouli. The lead did not last. Five minutes later Konstantinos Karetsas, another substitute, restored Dortmund's advantage, Fábio Silva turning provider this time to tee up the winner.

A first defeat snaps Betis's perfect start

For Real Betis, this was the first Champions League defeat of their campaign. They had opened with three straight wins — away at Lille, at home to Porto, then to Feyenoord — building nine points from as many as four games before this trip to Dortmund. That run, and the fact it came against three sides from three different countries, had made Betis one of the competition's quieter overachievers through the opening month; a trip to a stadium as loud as Signal Iduna Park was always going to be the sternest test of it, and on this occasion it was the one that broke the run.

Dortmund's bench did it again

Both of Dortmund's goals came from players who did not start the match: Fábio Silva did start, in fact, but the move for the winner ran through him and Karetsas, introduced from the bench, who finished it. It fits a pattern from Dortmund's recent form in the archive — a mixed run of three wins, two draws and a loss across their last five matches in all competitions — in which impact from the bench has repeatedly turned a tight game late on, most recently in a 2-2 draw away at Bayern Munich a week earlier in the Bundesliga.

A card-heavy night at both ends

The game was littered with bookings as both sides pushed for the goals that mattered: Dortmund picked up four yellow cards across the match, to Betis's four of their own, with Isco booked for Betis in stoppage time after coming on in the second half. Betis held the edge in corners, five to two, and were competitive in the underlying numbers — 47.4% of the possession, four shots on target to Dortmund's six — in a game that was closer on the pitch than the final twenty minutes suggested.

Match facts

• 49' — Fábio Silva (Borussia Dortmund)
• 67' — Aitor Ruibal, assisted by Abde Ezzalzouli (Real Betis)
• 72' — Konstantinos Karetsas, assisted by Fábio Silva (Borussia Dortmund)
• Signal Iduna Park, Dortmund — Champions League league phase, matchday 4, Wednesday 4 November 2026

What's next

The result leaves Borussia Dortmund 12th in the league phase on 9 points from four games, level on points with Real Betis, who stay just above them in 11th on the same tally — both clubs sit comfortably inside the knockout play-off zone that runs from 9th to 24th. For Betis, it is their first loss of the competition; for Dortmund, a result that keeps them firmly in the mix without yet closing the gap to the sides above.