A curious record between Swabia and Westphalia: BVB has not lost against VfB for the last five years, but they have only won one game at home from the last six home games. The two teams will meet where the most goals are scored when these teams play this season (altogether already 102). We have put all the info together as usual for the game on Sunday (Kick-off 15:30hrs).

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Situation: all back to ground zero for VfB: after 10 points from 13 games (16.position) the Head Coach was replaced at the start of the week (Krammy for Zorniger). A run of 4 wins in the league ended for BVB when they lost 1-3 in Hamburg. BVB is unbeaten against VfB in ten games (five wins, five draws).

Home/away: Borussia Dortmund has not lost at home in any competition for 16 games (15 wins). They have not lost at home to Stuttgart in the past eight years. However BVB had to make do with a draw in five of the last six home games against VfB. Stuttgart has only won one out of six away games in the current season (3-1 against Hannover on the 23.9.2015).

Personnel: Aubameyang, Reus and Kagawa, who were all missing in Krasnodar, could return to the team. Stuttgart have to do without the suspended Dié and also Kruse, Ginczek, Harnik and Langerak who are all missing through injury.

Tactics: we can expect BVB to be busy alternating between 4-2-3-1 and 4-1-4-1 and 4-3-3. Stuttgart is expected to line up in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1 formation and their focus will be on the team being in constant motion and always looking for the ball.

Record: there have been 21 goals in the last four matches between these two clubs. Dortmund has not lost against Stuttgart for ten games (five wins, five draws) – this is the longest current record against any Bundesliga club. Their last defeat was on the 31.January 2010, when they went down 4-1 in Stuttgart. BVB has won 32 of 94 matches they have played against VfB to date. The team from Swabia has won 38 times. BVB won 20 of those 32 victories in the Signal Iduna Park. There is no other club that BVB has not scored against as often at home as Stuttgart (twelve times).

Statistics: Borussia Dortmund has already got 29 points – this is nearly three times as many points as they had at this stage last season (eleven). Only Bayern Munich (still without a defeat) has lost less games than Borussia (two defeats). Whilst BVB has scored at least one goal in their last 20 league games, the team from Swabia has not scored in their last two games.

 

The highest victory: 7-1 on the 14. March 1964 in the first Bundesliga season. Timo Konietza scored four times in front of 28 000 spectators in the Rote Erde stadium! Lothar Emmerich (2) and Franz Brungs scored the other goals. Rolf Geiger scored for VfB, when he made the score 1-1.

Spectators: there are still 150 tickets for the VfB fans at the guest box office in front of the Nordtribüne that opens at 13:00hrs on Saturday. We highly recommend to arrive at the stadium early due to increased security.

Referees: Manuel Gräfe (42) will be in charge of the match just as he was last season for the match between BVB and VfB (2-2). He was in charge of the 5-1 against Augsburg in the current season.

Yellow cards: the Stuttgart players Didavi and Sunjic have already been yellow carded four times. Summary by Boris Rupert