Borussia meets Borussia

Sunday, 15:30, Borussia-Park: It is once again time for an exciting encounter of two west clubs that do not only share the name ‚Borussia‘, but also the love for Marco Reus. Marco Reus describes Borussia Möchengladbach as a ‘special club’ that enabled him to be where he is now. Without the experience he made during Gladbachs struggle, but also its success, he would have possibly not achieved what he has achieved in the last year as the best German player. Reus is still thankful for what the club gave him, but as we saw in the last match that does not mean that he will make concessions to his old teammates. In the first half of the season Dortmund celebrated a 5-0 victory over the ‘Fohlen’ and 2 Reus-goals!

The statists show that matches between the Borussias were very often steady, as Dortmund beat Gladbach 28 times, 26 times it was the other way round and in 27 of the encounters nobody left the field as a winner. In addition, the total amount of scored goals is almost equal too (Gladbach 136:135 Dortmund). But having a look on the last 10 games in the Bundesliga it comes out that Schwarzgelb can be considered to be the favourite. Only one of these games was lost and furthermore the relation of 20 to 4 goals underlines this assumption. In the League Dortmund is on second place, while Gladbach has only collected 30 points and stands on rank 10. Another aspect concerning the statistics which might help to foreshadow the result is the black yellow strength in most away games.

Nevertheless, statistics do not win a game and so we should not go over-confident into this match, although Gladbach is not good in form and may still suffer from its defeat in the international competition on Thursday against Rome, while Dortmund achieved a draw in the Ukraine and by that has created a favourable situation for the home-game on the 5th of march.

Furthermore there is still the problem that Lewandowski is not allowed to play after his red card against Hamburg and Julian Schieber cannot replace him as forward, as he got blocked too after two fouls against Frankfurt last week. A likely substitute could be Mario Götze, who has the best skills to fulfill the role as a striker because of his immense will to get close to the goal and to shoot on it. Maybe Ilkay Gündogan would take over his place in the offensive middlefield, and Bender and Kehl would make up the defensive part.
In Addition, it is not sure whether Kuba will be found on the field or not, as he is suffering from muscle problems. Besides the absence of these three players and of course of the long-time injured Owomoyela, no other gaps in the line-up are expected.

We hope for a victory over Gladbach, because we showed good performances against Donetsk and especially Frankfurt, where we compensated the loss of one player after 30 minutes very well. But thinking back to the match against Hamburg, and also when you look at the two goals Donetsk scored against us, it becomes clear that there is no real continuity yet. The defense showed problematic mistakes and sometimes the system was not set through very well, so that goals were scored against us that normally would not have been possible. The upward tendency in the results and the performance of our team lets us dream of the next victory so that the second place in the competition can be secured and another participation in the Champions League in the following season becomes more and more likely.

Referring to Marco Reus again, who comes home to the club that enabled him to be as successful as he is now, it can be said that we all accept if he does not want to celebrate the goals we hope to see from him as he did in the last encounter with the ‘Fohlen’. Maybe he will once again be the go-to guy of the match and dominate the game with his brilliant dribblings and passes. On the other hand, it is also true that attention has not only to be paid on him, but also an all other players, like for example Götze or Gündogan who can also improve the quality of the match a lot with their capabilities.

All in all, the signs for a black yellow victory over Gladbach are quite positive as the recent forms of both Borussias show and we can expect an exciting match in the Borussia-Park, where Fans of both clubs will celebrate the best German Footballer of the last year: Marco Reus, from who we hope to see even more wonderful goals that can be added to the 11 ones he already made in this competition.

Possible Line-Up:

Borussia Mönchengladbach: Ter Stegen – Jantschke, Stranzl, Alvaro Dominguez, Wendt – Nordveit, Marx, Cigerci – Hanke, L. de Jong, Arango
Coach: Favre
Borussia Dortmund: Weidenfeller – Piszczek, Subotic, Hummels, Schmelzer – S. Bender, Kehl – Blaszczykowski, Gündogan, Reus – M. Götze
Coach: Klopp
Referee: Perl
Kick Off: February, 24th, 3:20pm CET

veramariko, 22.02.2013

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