For an hour Signal Iduna Park held its breath. Then, in the space of half an evening, it lived a full season of Champions League emotion. Borussia Dortmund beat Villarreal 3-2 on Tuesday night in a match that lurched from stalemate to procession to near-catastrophe, and the men in black and yellow finally exhaled only when the referee ended it.

Serhou Guirassy was the story. His two goals in the closing stretch looked to have settled a contest that Villarreal, for long spells, had refused to concede. That the striker's night ended with an own goal in the third minute of added time was the sort of cruel footnote that only football writes. It mattered little. Dortmund had the three points, and in this competition the points are all that survive the morning after.

This was a game of momentum swings rather than sustained control, a night when neither side could quite hold the initiative for long. Dortmund broke the deadlock through fortune, surrendered their lead to a moment of Villarreal quality, then found the ruthlessness to seize the game back. The scoreline flatters neither team entirely, but it rewards the side that struck hardest when it counted.

A game cracked open

The breakthrough, when it arrived, owed as much to misfortune as method. On 53 minutes Renato Veiga turned the ball into his own net, and Dortmund had the lead their pressure had been threatening but not quite delivering. Signal Iduna Park, restless through a cagey first half, roared into life at the sight of the ball crossing the line, whatever the manner of it.

The advantage lasted barely quarter of an hour. Villarreal, who had trailed since the interval, drew level in the 66th minute through Santiago Mouriño, who rose at the left side of the six-yard box to glance a header into the bottom-left corner. The cross came from Georges Mikautadze following a corner, a set-piece routine executed with cold precision, and suddenly the Spanish side had a foothold their away-day underdog status barely deserved.

For a spell the visitors carried themselves like a team who believed a point, perhaps more, was there for the taking. They pressed with intent and defended their equaliser with discipline. But the reprieve for Dortmund's nerves was coming, and it wore a familiar face.

Guirassy's five minutes

On 80 minutes the game turned decisively. Guirassy pounced from very close range, stabbing a left-footed finish high into the centre of the goal after Fábio Silva laid the chance on a plate. It was the sort of predatory moment that separates the good sides from the anxious ones, and it restored a lead Dortmund would not relinquish.

Five minutes later, the striker made the points safe from the penalty spot. Guirassy stepped up and rolled a right-footed effort into the bottom-left corner, sending the goalkeeper the wrong way and the stadium into full voice. Two goals in the space of five minutes had transformed a tight, tense evening into what looked, briefly, like a comfortable one.

That is the value of a centre-forward in his pomp. Where the game had been fractured and uncertain, Guirassy supplied the certainty. His movement in the box, his willingness to gamble on the half-chance, and his composure from twelve yards were the difference between a hard-earned win and another night of European frustration.

A sting in the tail

Football, of course, rarely allows a clean finish. Deep into stoppage time, in the 90th minute plus three, Guirassy turned from hero to unwitting villain, diverting the ball into his own net to hand Villarreal a second goal and a grandstand ending nobody in black and yellow wanted. Suddenly a three-goal cushion had become a single-goal margin, and the closing seconds carried an edge that the earlier scoring had seemed to remove.

There was no time for Villarreal to conjure anything more, and Dortmund saw out the remaining moments to preserve the win. But the late own goal was a reminder of how quickly comfort can drain from a Champions League night, and how thin the line between a routine victory and a scramble truly is.

For Villarreal, the two goals will offer scant consolation. They leave Germany with nothing to show for a performance that had its moments, most notably Mouriño's equaliser and Mikautadze's delivery. The margins were fine, but the result was not, and that is the unforgiving arithmetic of this competition.

What it means

Dortmund climb to fourth on three points, a maximum return from their opening fixture with three goals scored and two conceded. The nature of the win — resilient, occasionally fortunate, ultimately decisive — is exactly the sort a team hoping to advance must learn to grind out. One win from one is a foundation, and Guirassy's finishing gives them a focal point to build the campaign around.

Villarreal, by contrast, sit 31st on no points, a single defeat leaving them among the also-rans of the early table. Two goals for and three against tells the story of a side who competed without quite doing enough. In a format this crowded and this merciless, an opening loss is not fatal, but it leaves little room for further slips, and the pressure to respond will begin building immediately.

The table at this stage is a sketch rather than a portrait, but the early ordering matters for morale and momentum. Dortmund have set off with the confidence of winners; Villarreal must regroup and find the ruthlessness that deserted them in Germany. For one team the season opened with a roar, for the other with a warning. The next round of fixtures will tell whether either lesson has been absorbed.