Discuss in forum (7 entries)

     Dortmund have 12 points advantage on the table. Their home stats are 7-3-1 (21-5 goals) and I just can repeat which I mentioned in my other preview, they are much better! And they are still in excellent shape, last week won 3-1 at Bayern's home, before 2-0 against Sankt Pauli and fully dominated during the match, 1-1 with Kaiserslautern on away field but many players arrived from the national teams after midweek friendly games and they were tired in my opinion. Furthermore unlucky draws with Stuttgart and Schalke, trashed Wolfsburg (3-0 away), etc. unnecessary to continue, Dortmund are the best team this season! First goalkeeper Weidenfeller will be back after minor injury but his replacement Langerak showed also great performance against Bayern, Owomoyela and Kagawa are still out with long term injuries. Kuba recovered and probably he will be in the starting line up again.

     Zvonimir Soldo has gone after nine rounds from Köln due to bad results, they collected only five points through the first nine rounds. His successor Frank Schaefer make good job and the team showed better performance. They signed some new players, Rensing (Bayern, reservist gk), Eichner (Hoffenheim, reservist defender) and Peszko (Lech Poznan, regular midfielder) are the most important. Köln are a strong home team with some excellent results for example 3-2 against Bayern München after the 0-2 half time result and they are really good at home. But on away field, disastrous records 1-3-8 (11-25 goals), the worst in the Bundesliga and has not changed recently. At home they won over Bayern (3-2), Mainz (4-2) and Freiburg (1-0 but Köln were much better), away games: 1-1 with Kaiserslautern (a bottom team), 0-3 against newcomers Sankt Pauli and last week 1-1 with Hoffenheim but it was a luckily result, Köln showed poor performance again while Hoffenheim missed many chances. Key defender Geromel and regular midfielder Matuschyk are still injured, Peszko recovered but probably he will be on the bench. Brečko and Petit served one match suspension, both are important.

     I was thinking that Dortmund have huge advantage but they played great football and they want reach more and more similar results and if they will win coach Jürgen Klopp can celebrate his 50th victory with Dortmund in the Bundesliga. Köln are in safety position so they won't only defend with ten players and I think Dortmund can win this meeting by 2 or 3 goals margin.