Borussia Dortmund's U23s will play host to FC Ingolstadt in their opening home game of the season. Kick-off at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK is at 13:00 CET on Sunday (07/08).

The Borussia reserves will play in front of their own supporters for the first time this season at the weekend. It will be coach Christian Preusser's dugout debut on home soil. Due to the ongoing construction works taking place at Stadion Rote Erde, the match will be held at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK, where our second team will play their home games for the foreseeable future. "Personally I'm excited, but naturally I've also noticed how excited the team is to be playing in front of our supporters for the first time. I know the stadium and have already seen several matches there," commented the new man on the sidelines.

The new coach and his charges played out a 1-1 draw with Wiesbaden in their opening game a fortnight ago. In what was an intense match-up with the men from Hesse, BVB failed to convert several good opportunities and subsequently fell behind. The team embraced the challenge and fought back to salvage a point at the end. Preusser remarked: "We took the lessons learned in Wiesbaden into training this week. We especially looked at our build-up play. And also the creation of chances was on the agenda again. But we also spoke about the positives and reinforced them."

Ingolstadt will be the visitors to Dortmund this time. Relegated from the 2. Bundesliga last season, they beat promoted SpVgg Bayreuth 1-0 in their opener and – along with Dresden, Aue and 1860 Munich – are among the hot favourites to go up. This sentiment was underscored by a recent pre-season survey of the other 19 coaches, 12 of whom cited Ingolstadt as a promotion contender. Including our coach, who said: "As a relegated club, I automatically see them among the candidates as you have the quality when you come down from a better league. Several players from last season are there. They are very well placed in terms of personnel. There's some real quality awaiting us."

Die Schanzer were in DFB-Pokal action last Monday, when they suffered a clear 3-0 defeat at the hands of second-tier SV Darmstadt 98. The Borussia youngsters, meanwhile, did not have a fixture and were able to prepare extensively for the upcoming third-tier clash. "But we used the time and trained intensively. We had a very long week of training. We were able to train a lot due to the DFB-Pokal break and now we're ready to go again," explained Preusser.

The 38-year-old tactician will be without new signing Can Özkan (knock to the hip), who made his debut in the BVB starting XI in Wiesbaden, for the upcoming clash with the Bavarians. The recently injured duo of Justin Njinmah and Jayden Braaf may return to the squad, with a final decision set to be made following the final training session on Saturday.

In any case, our coach will have a strong group at his disposal and one that has the potential to pick up the first home victory of the season. The team already played three home matches at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK towards the end of last season. They did not manage to triumph in any of those games, but will be looking to change that on Sunday.