Dortmund – Bayern Munich

Germany’s champions are expected to defeat their most challenging opponents

Arguably the main encounter of the upcoming European football weekend will take place on Saturday in Dortmund. Two of Germany's top teams of recent decades will face each other in a head-to-head encounter after tackling the Champions League in midweek. Before the meeting, the rivals are expected to occupy neighbouring places in the Bundesliga standings, but unexpectedly those places are not first and second. Both clubs are two points behind the leaders in third and fourth place after eight rounds, with fifteen points. Despite the location of the match, bookmakers have seen Bavaria as favourites, offering odds of less than 1.70 on their victory. Borussia Dortmund, having lost their main star in the off-season, have adapted their tactics somewhat through Terzic's efforts. Without Holand, who can score from any distance from any position, at the cutting edge, the Bumblebees have to play more cautiously in defence and find more sophisticated ways to approach the opponents' goal. Borussia do this rather well. After three rounds of the Champions League group stage, the club is firmly second in their quartet after Manchester City, and they are one win away from the top of the table in the Bundesliga. On the other hand, three defeats in eight league rounds is too much for a top club. Especially if those defeats took place in matches against Werder, Cologne and the "lame" Leipzig. With Bayern, things are both simpler and more complicated at the same time. On the one hand, the German champion is far from perfect, as evidenced by three draws and defeats to Augsburg in eight Bundesliga rounds. On the other hand, Bayern have not lost a single point in matches against strong opponents. Since the start of the season, Eintracht, Leipzig, Inter, Barcelona and Bayer have been beaten by a combined score of 19-4. This means that the Munich superclub, with the right attitude, can overlook opponents of any class. That being said, there is no doubt that Bayern will be in top form against their most important opponent on the national stage. Given the high number of injured players in the Borussia squad, we're betting that Bayern will pull out a convincing win.