Borussia Dortmund vs RB Leipzig
The 81,000-capacity Signal-Iduna-Park will be bouncing on Sunday as the Bundesliga kicks off with the 25,000-fan Yellow Wall as big and bold as ever.
Bundesliga Dortmund vs Leipzig is always a huge fixture, and as the season opener, it’s a humdinger! The fans in the South Stand are the most famous in European football and they’ll make a wall of sound as they try to roar their team on to victory.
SBOBET is proud to partner the Bundesliga’s best-supported club, but for this game, we’ll be impartial as always! The Dortmund vs Leipzig odds point to a home win, but it promises to be a hard-fought battle. Dortmund finished last season in the final Champions League spot but left it to the very last day, and sixth-placed Leipzig were just two points behind.
Talking Points
New BVB coach Lucien Favre’s first objective is to improve on last season; he has worked hard in the recruitment department, notably bringing in Abdou Diallo from
Mainz in a €28-million deal. The France U21 skipper has arrived in Dortmund with a five-year deal which Favre hopes will see him become a fan favourite at centre-back.
Skipper Marco Reus has said the most important acquisition of the summer period was Axel Witsel from Tianjin Quanjian. The Belgian midfielder has previously been linked with a move to Juventus, and he scored a dramatic 95th-minute winner in the 2-1 cup winner over Greuther Furth last week.
Favre has also brought in Morocco star Achraf Hakimi from Real Madrid, as well as Thomas Delaney from Werder Bremen and Marwin Hitz from Augsburg. The big question is how quickly can the boss mould his new recruits into a formidable team when he himself has just arrived at the Signal-Iduna-Park?
Dortmund fans have high expectations following recent success under Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp which included several domestic triumphs and culminated in a 2013 Champions League final appearance against FC Bayern.
This is a working city with a large-scale redevelopment of industrial space and breweries producing millions of litres of beer a year. They love their beer and they love their football team, and the Yellow Wall will be noisy and expectant come Sunday.
That’s something the visiting Leipzig players will have to deal with. And they have to do it without one big player of the last couple of seasons, following the departure of battling midfielder Naby Keita to Liverpool. Anfield boss Klopp has had a dig at Leipzig, saying it’s not a city with a great football heritage and may not have been the natural home for the Guinean, who doesn’t speak German. That won’t be lost on Leipzig fans who know which Klopp’s favourite Bundesliga club is.
Their own team may not have as rich a heritage, but Leipzig did take their place as the biggest rivals to FC Bayern in 2016/17, picking up second place in the top league.
They couldn’t repeat that feat last time out but made a Europa place with a solid season. Die Roten Bullen did beat the Champions so are always a danger, but Champions League and Europa commitments ultimately proved too much for them to mount another successful top-four challenge.
Hoffenheim boss Julian Nagelsmann has been hired to take the club forward next year, and so Ralf Rangnick is sitting in the hot seat and he has plenty to work on. He has been recruiting from South America, bringing in Uruguayan left-back Marcelo Saracchi and, alongside new Brazilian winger Matheus Cunha, he has impressed in pre-season.
Leipzig’s 2017 success was built on a prolific strike partnership of Timo Werner and Emil Forsberg who plundered a whopping 55 league goals between them. Can they do it again? Well, Rangnick is trying to provide the service. As well as bringing in Cunha, Rangnick has been pursuing 20-year-old Everton winger Ademola Lookman and would love to bring him in before the transfer window shuts at the end of the month. But the Goodison Park club is demanding £28m plus add-ons.
History
The Roten Bullen have a humble heritage compared to their hosts. Second place in 2017 is the pinnacle of Leipzig’s achievements, compared to BVB’s eight titles.
But Rangnick’s team is living in the present, and recent Dortmund vs Leipzig results have been in favour of the visitors with the head-to-heads reading two wins to one and one drawn. The two sides met at the Signa-Iduna-Park in October 2017 and Leipzig ran out 2-3 winners on that occasion, the departed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scoring both the home side’s goals.
In the run-up to the game, Dortmund followed up a friendly 1-0 win over Serie A giants Lazio with that Cup first-round win over Greuther Furth. Leipzig won their cup match against Viktoria Koln, but have a Europa playoff qualifier against to Zoria Luhansk to contend with before Sunday, though Rangnick is expected to rotate his squad for the trip to Ukraine.
Betting Tip
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Borussia Dortmund vs RB Leipzig | Borussia Dortmund 1×2 @ 1.78 |
| August 27, 00:00 (GMT+8) |
European commitments made life difficult for Leipzig last season, and while these are early days and legs are fresh, the longer preparation time available to Favre could work in his favour.
BVB recruited well while Leipzig’s business may not yet be completed, and there is a steely determination in Dortmund to recapture former glories.
An alternative view would be to look at the draw at 3.65 or a Double chance Leipzig or Draw at 1.92. But I think the Yellow Wall will be deafening, especially if the outcome is a 2-1 win…and that’s available at 7.40.
A SHORT EXPLANATION ON HOW OUR ( ) BETS ARE WORTH: |
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| = €20 (Highly confident) |
 = €10 (CONFIDENT) |
= €5 (SOMEWHAT CONFIDENT) |
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Disclaimer: Odds are correct at time of publish.
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