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          Borussia Dortmund's Marco Reus took match ball despite missing hat trick

          • Stephan Uersfeld, Germany correspondentNov 24, 2016, 04:12 AM ET

          Marco Reus took home the match ball after Borussia Dortmund's 8-4 win against Legia Warsaw despite UEFA denying him a hat trick.

          Reus -- making his first appearance in over six months due to injury -- scored twice and thought he had a third in injury time, but UEFA later ruled that the deflection from Legia's Jakub Rzezniczak had been decisive and marked it down as an own goal.

          The Germany international, though, had followed the tradition that allows hat-trick scorers to take home the match ball as he was unaware he had been denied the third goal.

          "Yes, he took the ball home," Dortmund media director Sascha Fligge told ESPN FC.

          The Reus incident was one of several stories to emerge from the record-breaking Champions League clash, which stands as the highest-scoring match in the history of the competition.

          Peter Flore, a new media editor at the club responsible for BVB's Twitter account, said it was tough to keep up with events on the night.

          "We were exhausted, but happy," he told ESPN FC.

          During the night, Flore had soon "realised that it's not a normal match" and told the story of the game with several GIFs referencing the inability to understand what happened on the pitch.

          "We soon drifted into the absurd," Flore said, highlighting that the only rule was to "respect the opponent and the match."

          Dortmund have around 20 million followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and BVB's head of new media, David Gorges, said: "On our digital channels, we try to intentionally implement pop cultural references which are of relevance outside the normal football audience."

          During the Legia match, BVB used GIFs and images from "Back To The Future," "Mr. Bean," "Futurama," "Friends," "How I Met Your Mother" and others, including some that are well-known and others that are less so.

          "Sure, we have a few classics and rituals," Flore said. "But with a game like that, that's not enough to put the madness into words and pictures. We want to be wide-awake, read the situation and construe it the best way possible."