Borussia Dortmund take on Stuttgart in the Bundesliga on Saturday, with the hosts looking to get back to winning ways after picking up just one point from their last two league matches.
The visitors, meanwhile, have lost just once since the opening day and will have every confidence of pulling off an upset.
Match preview
© Reuters
With Erling Braut Haaland on the sidelines with a hamstring injury, Dortmund lacked their usual cutting edge without the side's top goalscorer in the 1-1 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt last weekend.
Mats Hummels passed a late fitness test to feature in the match, spurning an early opportunity by narrowly heading wide. Frankfurt punished their opponents' profligacy when Daichi Kamada latched onto Martin Hinteregger's long pass, with the Japan midfielder's touch typically tight and backed up by a calm finish past the advancing Roman Burki.
However, Kamada's goal proved to be the hosts' only shot on target throughout the entire 90 minutes, with Lucien Favre's side rallying after going behind. Giovanni Reyna was in inspired form, cleverly deceiving Erik Durm with clever footwork before finding Jadon Sancho inside the penalty area, but the England winger fired narrowly wide. Roles were reversed in the second half when Sancho found Reyna inside, with the American showing his teammate how it is done by smashing inside the near post past a helpless Kevin Trapp.
Despite a lively cameo from 16-year-old Youssoufa Moukoko late in the match, BVB failed to find the winner their performance perhaps merited, but did at least wrap up top spot in Group F of the Champions League with a 2-1 win at Zenit St Petersburg on Tuesday. Attention must now return to gaining ground on Bayern Munich at the top of the table.
© Reuters
Having only been promoted back into the Bundesliga last season, Stuttgart would never have expected to have been in the top half of the table after the opening 10 matches of the season.
Pellegrino Matarazzo's side showed their full capabilities on the counter-attack in last weekend's 2-1 win at Werder Bremen, with Silas Wamangituka in devastating form. Wataru Endo was upended by Tahith Chong, on loan from Manchester United, in the penalty area, allowing Wamangituka to open the scoring from the spot. The pacy forward should have made it two when racing onto Gonzalo Castro's drilled through pass, but he fired into the side netting from close range.
Stuttgart's lead never really looked like ending against a toothless Bremen side, with a defensive mix up between Omar Toprak and goalkeeper Jiri Pavlenka allowing Wamangituka to nick in between the duo and steal the ball, before nonchalantly taking his time and tapping the ball into an empty net. David Selke was visibly enraged by Wamangituka's time taken before scoring, with the two forwards both booked after a coming together.
Selke responded with a consolation goal of his own, but Stuttgart had the last laugh by claiming three points to move up to eighth in the table. Recording an upset at Dortmund is firmly within their capabilities, especially given Matarazzo's side still remain unbeaten away from home after five matches on the road this season.
Borussia Dortmund Bundesliga form: WWLWLD
Borussia Dortmund form (all competitions): WWLDDW
Stuttgart Bundesliga form: DDDDLW
Team News
© Reuters
Dortmund are without several players for the visit of Stuttgart, including Haaland (hamstring), Thomas Meunier (torn muscle), Mateu Morey (muscular), Thomas Delaney (back), Reinier (coronavirus) and Marcel Schmelzer (knee).
Should Favre persist with his preferred back three system, it will be a choice between experience or youth at right wing-back, with 35-year-old Lukasz Piszczek and 22-year-old Felix Passlack fighting for a place in the first XI.
Stuttgart have their own list of injury issues, with Daniel Didavi (hip), Momo Cisse (torn muscle), Clinton Mola (fitness), Atakan Karazor (torn ligament), Erik Thommy (elbow), Maxime Awoudja (fitness), Hamadi Al Ghaddioui (pubitis) and forward Nicolas Gonzalez (ruptured knee ligament) all unavailable for the trip to Dortmund.
Captain and talismanic midfield presence Castro is at risk of a one-match suspension, which he will receive if he picks up another booking.
Borussia Dortmund possible starting lineup:
Burki; Can, Hummels, Akanji; Passlack, Witsel, Dahoud, Guerreiro; Reyna, Sancho; Brandt
Stuttgart possible starting lineup:
Kobel; Mavropanos, Anton, Kempf; Wamangituka, Sosa, Endo, Castro, Mangala; Kalajdzic, Coulibaly
We say: Borussia Dortmund 1-1 Stuttgart
We can envisage Stuttgart's unbeaten away record remaining intact at the end of the 90 minutes, with their counter-attacking game likely to cause Dortmund plenty of problems in transition.
With Haaland missing in attack, meanwhile, BVB may find Matarazzo's side tough to break down.
Top betting tip
Brett Curtis
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Borussia Dortmund win with a probability of 52.22%. A win for Stuttgart had a probability of 25.87% and a draw had a probability of 21.9%.
The most likely scoreline for a Borussia Dortmund win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.52%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (7.29%) and 2-0 (7.16%). The likeliest Stuttgart win was 1-2 (6.45%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (9.69%). The actual scoreline of 1-5 was predicted with a 0.3% likelihood.
