The situation
After the “three Bs” of Bodø, Berlin and Baku, involving more than 11,000 kilometres of travel, Borussia Dortmund return to their home ground, SIGNAL IDUNA PARK, for the first time in two weeks to face Eintracht Frankfurt. “We’re finally playing at home again. It’s good to play in front of your own fans. I hope they’ll roar us on to victory,” says BVB coach Niko Kovac ahead of the match.
Back at their own stadium, BVB are looking to return to winning ways in the Bundesliga. Four wins at the start of the season were followed by two draws: 2-2 against Bremen and 0-0 away to Union Berlin. Sharing the points in the capital saw BVB drop to second in the table – albeit only on goal difference. Like the Black & Yellows, league leaders Bayern Munich have 14 points. A win would put Dortmund top for at least one night, with the record champions not in action until Sunday in Freiburg.
A key foundation for that is the best defence in the league so far: BVB have conceded just four goals and have already kept four clean sheets.
Team news
All the players who travelled to Baku came through the match unscathed. “Yesterday was a day off from training. That was very important after all the kilometres we’d had to cover,” says Kovac. Find out here who will miss the Frankfurt match and who received special praise from the coach.
The opposition
Frankfurt recently celebrated their first home win of the season, beating 1. FC Köln 1-0. Before that, Eintracht had lost 6-0 away in Leipzig. With two wins, two draws and two defeats, the Hesse club sit 11th. They have already conceded 16 goals in six Bundesliga matches – four times as many as BVB. Against Köln, Frankfurt kept their first clean sheet of the season. “They would certainly like to have a few more points, but their performances in recent matches have been inconsistent. A draw, a defeat, a win – there’s been a bit of everything,” says Kovac. “They’re a team that will be in the top third of the table at the end of the season. I’m convinced of that.”
The Bundesliga head-to-head record against Eintracht favours BVB: the Black & Yellows have beaten Frankfurt more often than any other club – 52 times in total. Dortmund have won 14 of their last 15 home matches against the Hesse side. Another Dortmund victory would also mark Eintracht’s 500th away defeat in the Bundesliga.
The coaches
On Saturday, Niko Kovac will face an old acquaintance on the touchline: Adi Hütter. The two coaches have met seven times so far – the first time 17 years ago, in October 2009, when Kovac’s Salzburg Juniors faced Hütter’s SCR Altach. They have also worked at some of the same clubs: Hütter succeeded the current BVB coach in Frankfurt in 2018, and both later coached AS Monaco. Today, Kovac’s focus is on the Black & Yellows: “Wherever I work, I always put my heart into it,” says the BVB coach. “We want to lift some silverware too. We have to work hard for that, and we’ll give it everything we’ve got.”Christina Reinke
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.