Borussia Dortmund vs Barcelona 18/09/19

18 September 2019

One of the derbies of the opening matchday of the 2019/20 UEFA Champions League (CL) campaign takes place at the Signal Iduna Park where Borussia Dortmund take on Barcelona in the Group F opener. Curiously, both sides have seen their 2018/19 CL campaigns ended by the eventual finalists, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, respectively, with Dortmund quitting the competition in the round of 16 while Barcelona exited in the semi-finals.

Notably though, the hosts have finished the last group stage campaign as the best defensive team having kept five clean sheets in the opening six CL matches. What’s more, before losing to Tottenham 1-0 at home, they have not conceded a single goal at the Signal Iduna Park (W2, D1) while scoring seven goals in the process. Also, the BVB boast a solid home record against the Spanish sides lately, having lost just three of last 15 such games (W8, D4, L3). A potential worry for Lucien Favre, however, could be that Dortmund secured only three wins in their last ten European home outings (W3, D2, L5).

Meanwhile, the visitors have not lost a single match in the last CL campaign before suffering a humiliating 4-0 away loss to Liverpool in the second leg of their semi-finals tie (W8, D3, L1). But, only three of those triumphs have arrived away from home, making it four from 13 for the Blaugrana for the past three years (W4, D5, L4). Also, the Catalans have scored one goal or less in four of their last five CL trips, restricting their rivals to a maximum of one goal per match four times too. Additionally, they have not enjoyed much success against the Bundesliga sides when away from home, winning just two of their last seven trips to Germany.