On Saturday (15:30 CET) Borussia will return to their former stomping ground of Köln-Müngersdorf. But since picking up four away victories in a row against their North Rhine-Westphalian neighbours between 2008 and 2012 (1-0, 3-2, 2-1, 6-1) – including some exhilarating clashes and last-minute goals – the Black and Yellows have suffered 2-1 defeats on each of their last two trips to Cologne.

Those two runs become even more interesting if you take the home games at Signal Iduna Park into consideration. Then it would be eight consecutive wins for BVB over Köln between 29 October 2008 and 25 March 2012. The Billy Goats, on the other hand, have gone on a run of their own since regaining promotion to the top tier, avoiding defeat in four successive meetings with Borussia (two victories, two draws).

"Consistency, quality, calmness and very, very shrewd transfers" set 1. FC Köln apart according to Thomas Tuchel, who spoke of a "homogeneous team that exudes the same aura of calm as the leadership that surrounds them".

Götze missing, Schmelzer and Sokratis doubtful

For Borussia Dortmund, who will remain without Mario Götze (Tuchel: He still has too much pain in the region of his kneecap – I'm not expecting him to return to action until next week") and are currently sweating on the fitness of Sokratis and Marcel Schmelzer (the pair returned from Madrid with painful bruising), it is all about getting back to peak condition following a Champions League clash, especially for an away trip.

"It does us good to recover for a long time and train well, to build up the strain, so that we are in the absolute top condition to play. That's the crux of the matter," said Tuchel of the congested schedule that rarely exempts BVB from playing twice in the space of a week. He continued: "This team ideally needs a lot of training. This explains the dips after Champions League matches. I'm not looking to dig out excuses already. Since the Frankfurt match at the latest, we are all very aware of this and need to put in a real show of determination. We really want to pick up points, hopefully three."

Let's hope it's the start of a new run against Köln...
Boris Rupert

BVB total! video: The press conference with head Thomas Tuchel, frei für alle