Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund is the upcoming match in the UEFA Champions League group stage between two giants of English and German football.
Date, Location and Kick Off:
Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund will be played on the 15th of September, with a 12;30 am IST kick-off. The match will be played at the City of Manchester Stadium in Manchester, England.
Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund: Match Preview:
Erling Braut Haaland's goalscoring capabilities in the Premier League may have been called into question before his arrival at the Etihad Stadium - such concerns have since been quashed - but his penchant for Champions League heroics had already been firmly established.
The 22-year-old struck twice in the 4-0 win over Sevilla to take his European tally to 25 goals in 20 Champions League matches, while Phil Foden and Ruben Dias also got in on the act at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, and Haaland needs no added motivation to get one over his old employers here.
Guardiola's side - like all Premier League teams involved in European competition - have enjoyed the rare luxury of a week off following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, which meant the reigning top-flight champions did not have the chance to put further pressure on Arsenal at the top of the table.
Nevertheless, City have now successfully traversed their first seven games of the season unbeaten in all competitions and have scored at least three goals in each of their four home encounters - racking up 17 in total - and Guardiola will also take charge of a Champions League game for the 150th time this week.
The ex-Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss continues his painful wait for a European honour with the Citizens, but the hosts now have a chance to extend their unbeaten home run to 21 Champions League games this week, and Dortmund travel to England on the back of a painful away-day defeat.
A 4-1 thrashing at the hands of Shakhtar Donetsk saw RB Leipzig turn to former Borussia Dortmund head coach Marco Rose after giving Domenico Tedesco the boot, and the ex-BVB chief oversaw a comprehensive success over his old club in the Bundesliga.
Willi Orban's header, Dominik Szoboszlai's screamer and Amadou Haidara's tap-in wrapped up a 3-0 success for Die Roten Bullen over Dortmund - the same scoreline that the Black and Yellow had inflicted upon Copenhagen during their Champions League opener.
Defeat at the Red Bull Arena ended a run of three consecutive wins and three consecutive clean sheets for Dortmund, who could do with Champions League star Haaland leading the line right now, but the impact of a certain Giovanni Reyna was well and truly felt last week.
Coming on as an early substitute to replace the injured Thorgan Hazard, the 19-year-old set up Jude Bellingham and Raphael Guerreiro's efforts against Copenhagen and will hope to play a key role as Dortmund set out to avoid a third-straight Champions League loss on the road.
Not since October 2017 have the Bundesliga side drawn on their travels in the Champions League - winning seven and losing 10 such games in the past five years - but they fell to a 4-2 aggregate defeat against Man City in the 2020-21 quarter-finals.
Team News:
Manchester City
Kyle Walker, John Stones and Aymeric Laporte are injured at the moment and have been ruled out of this fixture. Manuel Akanji and Erling Haaland are set to face their former team this week.
Borussia Dortmund
Sebastien Haller has been diagnosed with cancer and is unavailable for selection for the foreseeable future. Thorgan Hazard, Mateu Morey, and Mahmoud Dahoud are injured and will not be able to feature in this game.
Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund: Head to Head:
Manchester City have a good record against Borussia Dortmund and have won two out of the four games that have been played between the two sides. Borussia Dortmund have managed one victory against Manchester City and will need to step up in this fixture.
The previous meeting between the two teams took place last year and ended in a 2-1 victory for Manchester City. Borussia Dortmund gave a good account of themselves on the day and will need to take it up a notch this week.
Predicted Line-ups:
Manchester City Predicted XI (4-3-3): Ederson Moraes; Sergio Gomez, Ruben Dias, Manuel Akanji, Joao Cancelo; Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne; Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Erling Haaland
Borussia Dortmund Predicted XI (4-2-3-1): Alexander Meyer; Nico Schlotterbeck, Mats Hummels, Raphael Guerreiro, Thomas Meunier; Jude Bellingham, Salih Ozcan; Julian Brandt, Marco Reus, Giovani Reyna; Anthony Modeste