Bor. M'Gladbach - Borussia Dortmund

The top match of Round 18 takes place in Borussia Park between Borussia M’Gladbach and Borussia Dortmund. An absolutely top clash between these two teams where a lot of goals should be delivered. In this case it can be a very entertaining game, of course. But after the winter break it is not sure in what condition both are already. Absolutely sure is that Gladbach wants revenge for the 0-4 in first game. This time they should be much better prepared and in shape as well as in this match. Also at home they are unbeaten in 6 matches against Dortmund and have a good record too.

After an awful begin of the Season and 5 defeats in a row Coach Favre left the club and Schubert took over, with him they had an incredible run and could close the gap to the international places. They are looking forward to continue the run where they lost only 1 time with Schubert and get an international spot in the end of the Season. It should be possible because the team looked very balanced and they strength it with Hofmann from Dortmund and Hinteregger from RB Salzburg additional. It was important to do this transfers according to their big injury list with a lot of missing, additional to this list (Dominguez, Hahn, Herrmann, Jantschke and Schulz) they have 1 suspended players too. This player is key midfield and captain Xhaka. He was replaced well in last game but against Dortmund it can be much more different to find the right mix for Schubert. Absolutely open is if new signing Hofmann starts already against his old team mates or if he is on bench first while Hinteregger is for sure not an option for the starting lineup because of condition problems.

Dortmund wants to be Bayern's biggest rival but for this they have to win matches otherwise they lose more and more space to the leader. They must hope that Bayern Munich has the same weak second half what they had the last two years under Guardiola. Of course they were strong but lost some Points. All in Dortmund hopes that they can close the gap to the leader but for this they have to play a really strong second half and lose not much Points. Therefore they have to continue the run they started in preparation where they won all their friendly matches. They showed very good early form and this can be key to start well into 2016. Coach Tuchel can count on his strongest lineup for this encounter. Of course they miss some with Bender, Sahin, Schmelzer and Durm. Also with Kagawa and Ramos missed two players some training sessions this week due to illness. Both are not an option for the starting lineup because for Kagawa plays Castro who had a great preparation so far. The second one Ramas is only a bench player anyway and not so important at all. All the other top weapons are ready for Dortmund.