Borussia Dortmund are away to the league leaders on Sunday afternoon: the away game against Bayer Leverkusen will kick off at 17:30 CET.

BVB are currently on a run of three away games in a row in three competitions: the UEFA Champions League, the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal. The Black & Yellows tasted success in the first one in Milan on Tuesday evening. The 3-1 victory away to AC Milan prematurely secured qualification for the round of 16. There are four days between the match at the San Siro and the next competitive game at the BayArena on Sunday – an unusually large gap for an English week. But not all the players were able to use that time to become fit and healthy. 

“We had a few unfit players with us in Milan, we were unfortunately hit by a wave of colds,” explained BVB coach Edin Terzic on Saturday. “Niklas Süle, Ramy Bensebani and Salih Özcan have not been able to train with the team over the course of the past few days. We are waiting to make a final decision. But time is of course running out.”

Leverkusen in action in Sweden on Thursday

Bayer Leverkusen have had less time to recover: the Werkself made the trip to Sweden to face BK Häcken in the Europa League group stages on Thursday evening. The 2-0 victory was Bayer’s 14th in succession. Leverkusen are the only team in Europe that are still unbeaten this season. “Leverkusen are having an extraordinary season. They give away very few goalscoring chances and have a great mixture of creativity and aggression in the middle, tempo on the flanks and physicality in the centre of attack,” according to Terzic, who added: “They are having a very good season. They will want to continue that and we want to put it all to the test.” Bayer currently top the standings with 34 points (11 wins and one draw) ahead of Bayern Munich. Their record of 37 goals scored and 10 goals conceded is bettered only by the men from Munich.

Nonetheless, Edin Terzic is in combative mood: “Lots of teams have tried to trip Leverkusen up. They’re brimming with self-confidence. But we’ve also managed to score seven goals in the last 150 minutes in the Bundesliga and the Champions League. So we also have every reason to go into this game with self-confidence and to pose them a challenge.”

It would be the second victory in the second of their three of away games in a row.
Christina Reinke

BVB TV by 1&1: The press conference prior to the match in Leverkusen