Ruhr derby in the 3. Liga: the Borussia Dortmund U23s will travel away to MSV Duisburg on Saturday (14:00 CET).

A glance at the recent past since the Dortmund U23s gained promotion shows that the Meiderich outfit can certainly be regarded as a favourite foe. The reverse fixture at the Stadion am Zoo in Wuppertal ended in a 2-0 victory, with Moritz Broschinski and Marco Pasalic scoring the goals. And in the season before that, the Black & Yellows ran out 3-1 and 4-1 victors against the Zebras. The aim will now be to continue this winning streak in the fourth meeting.

“Positive statistics are always nice to see, of course. But many of the players and I don’t have that much to do with that, of course,” said BVB coach Jan Zimmermann. Nonetheless, he wants to help prevent the run against the Zebras from coming to an end, saying: “We want to win the game.”

The U23s are on an upward trajectory. The Black & Yellows are unbeaten in three matches (two wins and one draw) and occupy 15th place in the 3. Liga table, with 31 points. The Ruhr derby away to MSV Duisburg offers the U23s a big opportunity to close the gap to mid-table. MSV are currently five points and three places above BVB in the table.

“We don’t look at the table too much,” Zimmermann was quick to point out. “We want to focus on our game and continue where we left off recently.” The game against Halle was “decent” despite ending in a 0-0 draw, as the coach emphasised. “We tried to create chances for ourselves, but that wasn’t so easy against such a compact opponent.” Previously, the U23s had beaten 1860 Munich and Zwickau by 4-1 and 4-0 scorelines respectively.

In Duisburg and in the final weeks of the season run-in, the objective will be “to become even clearer in our actions” in order to continue the upward trajectory and keep the momentum going. The match in the MSV Arena will undoubtedly be a highlight for the BVB youngsters – not only because of the stadium, which is suitable for top-flight matches, but also because of the atmosphere that is expected. For the Black & Yellows, the match is therefore also a yard-stick of how stable the current upturn actually is.

Coach Jan Zimmermann will still be without Dennis Lütke-Frie, who has a foot injury. Marco Pasalic will not recover from his illness in time and will therefore be missing this weekend as well. 
Daniel Mertens