May is going to be quite the month! The Borussia Dortmund players have the last four matches of an extremely exciting Bundesliga run-in coming up – three of which will take place on home turf at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK. But the Black & Yellow footballers are not the only ones that can crown their season in May, with the women’s handballers in pursuit of a trophy on the European stage.
Sunday 7 May (17:30 CET): BVB vs. VfL Wolfsburg
Borussia Dortmund will start the month with a home game against a favourite foe. VfL Wolfsburg’s last victory in Dortmund to date came more than 10 years ago – on 8 December 2012. BVB are also in impressive home form and recently claimed a 09th consecutive competitive victory in their own stadium by beating Eintracht Frankfurt 4-0. But beware of hungry wolves: Niko Kovac’s team ran out 2-0 winners in the reverse fixture and brought their own negative run of 14 games against Borussia without a win to an end.
Saturday 13 May (18:00 CET): BVB women vs. Nykøbing Falster Håndbold
The BVB women’s handballers will travel to Graz, Austria for the Final Four of the EHF European League on the second weekend in May. The Dortmund ladies will take on Nykøbing Falster from Denmark at the Raiffeisen-Sportpark in the semi-final. Their possible final opponent will have been determined by then: Thüringer HC and Ikast Handbold, who are also Danish, will have already contested their semi-final in the same location that afternoon. The two winning teams will then battle for the cup in the final at 18:00 CET on the Sunday (14 May), with the third-place play-off taking place at 15:30 CET.
Saturday 13 May (18:30 CET): BVB vs. Borussia Mönchengladbach
Battle of the Borussias on Bundesliga Matchday 32: Gladbach will be the visitors to SIGNAL IDUNA PARK in the top-match slot on this Saturday evening – and will probably have bad memories from last year. The outstanding Marco Reus dispatched his former club back to the Lower Rhine with two goals and three assists in a 6-0 victory for the Black & Yellows last season. The Foals no longer have anything to play for, but former BVB youth coach Daniel Farke’s team will certainly be looking to pick up a result. As they did in the reverse fixture, when Dortmund suffered a 4-2 defeat in Gladbach in the final match before the World Cup finals. That means there is a score to be settled.
Sunday 21 May (17:30 CET): FC Augsburg vs. BVB
The final away match of the season will see BVB visit Augsburg. Since the scheduling change last season, the Matchday 33 games are no longer played simultaneously at 15:30 CET on a Saturday, which is why the penultimate match of the Bundesliga season at the WWK-Arena will not take place until late on a Sunday afternoon. FCA will probably be in just as much need of points as BVB if the Bavarian Swabians have not managed to ensure their survival by that point. The most recent meeting between the two teams in January was spectacular: Augsburg thrice levelled to cancel out a lead for the Black & Yellows at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK, and it was not until Gio Reyna scored a stunning strike to make it 4-3 that the Fuggerstadt outfit were finally beaten. Will the return fixture be a similarly wild encounter?
Saturday 27 May (15:30 CET): BVB vs. FSV Mainz 05
No-one will be able to predict how the Bundesliga games will go up until the final day. However, the probability is high that there will still be a great deal at stake when Borussia play host to 1. FSV Mainz 05 on Matchday 34. That might not solely be the case for Borussia Dortmund, but may also apply to the visitors from Mainz, whose European aspirations are fully justified following a brilliant second half of the season. Perhaps there will be a repeat of the drama from the reverse fixture, when Borussia only scored the winner to seal a 2-1 victory in Mainz at the end of stoppage time.