Borussia Dortmund vs Heidenheim

Bundesliga debutants Heidenheim head to Signal Iduna Park to encounter perennial runners-up Borussia Dortmund in their first-ever top-flight meeting.

Last season’s failed attempt to dethrone Bayern Munich for the first time in 11 years left Borussia Dortmund in tatters, as evidenced by their uneventful showings at the start of the 2023/24 Bundesliga campaign. Donyell Malen’s 88th-minute winner propelled ‘Die Borussen’ to a narrow 1-0 win over Cologne in their opening home game of the season, yet a 1-1 draw at perennial bottom-half strugglers Bochum left a lot to be desired. Yet to score before halftime in the Bundesliga this term, Edin Terzic’s men will seek a more electrifying start, knowing they’ve lost precisely one home game against newly-promoted clubs in each of the last three seasons (W3, L3). However, Signal Iduna Park remains synonymous with a fortress, with Dortmund winning all but one of their 12 competitive home matches since the turn of 2023 (W11, D1)! It’s nothing less important to note they scored 2+ goals 11 times during that 12-game sequence.

In the meantime, as the longest-serving manager in Germany’s professional football since 2021, Heidenheim boss Frank Schmidt will be after a big scalp this weekend. After a disheartening 2-0 defeat at Wolfsburg in their maiden Bundesliga appearance on day one, Schmidt’s side found a top-flight breakthrough last weekend but eventually finished on the receiving end of a 3-2 scoreline against TSG Hoffenheim despite being 2-0 up by the 77th minute. Despite becoming the first promoted team since Cologne and Paderborn in 2019/20 to open their Bundesliga campaign with back-to-back losses, Heidenheim can draw some courage from the fact only two sides to open a new season on a two-game losing run have since suffered relegation. But there’s a more pressing issue as they stare down the barrel of three consecutive league defeats for the first time since October 2021.