Following two weeks of active recovery, the short winter break is coming to an end for the Borussia Dortmund first team. On Tuesday, they will return to the training pitch, before their winter training camp in Dubai from 7 until 16 January.

In the same week as their first league match (23 January away to Borussia Mönchengladbach), BVB will play friendlies against Sparta Prague (19/1 at 19:05 CET in Essen) and away to Union Berlin (24/1 at 17:00 CET). 

Following 30 competitive games in the first half of the season, the club could face up to 29 matches in the second half if they were to reach the finals of the two cup competitions. However, the matches will now be closer together than before the winter break. The 30 matches before Christmas took place in a 20.5 week period, whereas there are only 17 weeks in the second half of the season until the DFB Cup final on 21 May. (br)