Overview
Dortmund have been in inconsistent form this season. After a 3-0 win over Club Brugge in the Champions League, they were surprisingly thrashed 5-1 by Stuttgart in the Bundesliga.
Dortmund then struggled to come back to beat Bochum 4-2. Clearly, the Signal Iduna Park team still has many problems to solve, especially in defense.
Meanwhile, Celtic have maintained their unbeaten record since the start of the season. They have won all six of their Scottish Premiership games, scoring 20 goals and conceding none. In their Champions League opener, Celtic also had an impressive 5-1 win over Slovan Bratislava.
Celtic are currently on a 13-game winning streak and are unbeaten in 26. They have lost just once in 36 games this year (W30 D5).
However, in terms of the correlation between the two teams, Celtic is still inferior to Dortmund. Moreover, the Signal Iduna Park will be a great support for the German team. Therefore, even though Celtic is in good form, they still have to try more than 100% of their ability against Dortmund if they do not want to leave empty-handed.
This will be the first meeting between Dortmund and Celtic in more than three decades. Between September 1987 and November 1992, the two teams met four times in what is now known as the Europa League. Remarkably, Dortmund won three of those meetings and lost just one.
It is also worth noting that Celtic have a record of 4 wins, 5 draws and 19 losses in 28 meetings with German sides, while Dortmund have won 6, drawn 5 and lost 5 in 16 meetings with Scottish opponents.
Human resources situation
Jamie Gittens picked up an injury in Dortmund's latest home win over Bochum in the Bundesliga, while Giovanni Reyna is also sidelined.
On the other side of the front line, Cameron Carter-Vickers is the only absentee in this match. The 20-year-old player is still recovering from a toe injury.
Expected lineup:
Dortmund: Kobel, Couto, Anton, Schlotterbeck, Ryerson, Grob, Can, Adeyemi, Brandt, Duranville, Guirassy.
Celtic: Schmeichel, Taylor, Scales, Trusty, Johnson, Engels, Bernardo, McGregor, Kuhn, Maeda, Furuhashi.
The match between Dortmund and Celtic takes place at 2:00 a.m. on October 2 (Vietnam time).