Matchday Compact: All Info for the Dortmund Game

It is one of the largest football stadiums in Europe; Signal Iduna Park stands out simply because of its size. There is space for 81,365 spectators in the former Westfalenstadion, the special feature: the yellow wall. The south stand holds almost 25,000 standing places, making it the largest continuous standing room curve in the world.

The Signal Iduna Park is a historic place from a football perspective; games from the 1974 and 2006 World Cups took place here, including where Germany lost to Italy in the semi-finals. The 2006 World Cup was also responsible for the expansion of the stadium. The stadium originally fit 54,000 spectators, but after three different expansion measures the current capacity was achieved. Construction of the stadium began in 1971 to be completed in time for the 1974 World Cup.

Thanks to UEFA’s change to the standing room rule at European Cup games, Dortmund are now able to make full use of their yellow wall in international games. The images of impressive choreos went far beyond the country’s borders; the stadium and especially the south are always seen as a major bargaining chip in international games.

The Lilies played their first competitive game of the year against Borussia Dortmund courageously, even gaining advantages in possession in the early stages and letting the ball run smoothly again and again, only shots were missing in the first few minutes.

Even after that, the 98ers remained the more active team, but the first big chance went to the guests: Brandt tried a cross from close range, Marcel Schuhen was wide awake and fended off the ball on 20 minutes. Four minutes later, Brandt scored: following a rapid counterattack via Bynoe-Gittens, he placed it into the far corner. With the lead, BVB became more confident and the Darmstadt team was less able to take action in Dortmund’s half. After 39 minutes, the Lilies had their first chance through Tim Skarke: after a cross from Luca Pfeiffer, the attacker tried directly, but took a lot of risk and put the ball past the goal.

After the break, SVD had the first chance, but Pfeiffer’s long-range shot landed in the arms of the keeper on 48 minutes. Overall, the game was now largely even, without many shots on both sides. Just past the hour, the Lilies narrowly missed an equaliser: Fabian Holland swung a corner into the middle, Clemens Riedel flicked it towards the far post and Pfeiffer was denied from close range by Kobel in the Dortmund goal. At the other end, Schuhen had to be alert to push away an effort from Sabitzer.

The home side remained well in the game as the game progressed, but after 77 minutes Dortmund scored their second goal: Reus made it 2-0 for BVB after an assist from Sancho. In the final minutes, the 98ers continued to try to score another goal, but couldn’t find a way through and even had to accept the 0:3 defeat by Moukoko.

BVB coach Edin Terzic looks back on the season with mixed feelings: “We left far too many points in home games and drew too many games.” We want to win against the Lilies in front of our own crowd, also for the Borussia legend A fitting farewell to Marco Reus. “Marco will not only be on the pitch from the start tomorrow, but will also lead the team as captain,” said Terzic, looking at Reus’ last home game for BVB.

In cloudy conditions in Dortmund, the temperature climbs to a maximum of 20 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. The chance of precipitation during the game is 35 percent. It could also rain in the evening, with a 90 percent chance.

You can watch the Lilies‘ game against Borussia Dortmund live on Sky. Markus Lindemann comments on the individual game. Marcel Meinert commented on the conference with all the games on Saturday afternoon. The Sky conference is moderated by Britta Hofmann and the expert is Dietmar Hamann.

Match day! And so back into matchday mode. You can of course follow the duel between the Lilies and Borussia Dortmund again on Saturday afternoon in the Software AG Matchcenter on our homepage. Just click on the orange button! There we provide you with numerous Live-Data from the game. You can also use our Live-Ticker

All followers of the Lilies can follow the game over on our Liveticker and can also tune in on our Fanradio. Pictures from the game will appear on our Facebook and Twitter. Still more photos can be found on Instagram.