Four home wins and four draws away: only against Sportclub Freiburg have Borussia Dortmund gone a longer period of time unbeaten in the league than against TSG Hoffenheim, who will take to the field on Saturday in the Signal Iduna Park (18:30 CET). Here, the facts about the game.

How Things Stand: Sixth against fifth. A win for BVB (currently on 25 points) would mean they move above TSG (currently on 26 points) in the table. Hoffenheim have not won against Dortmund in eight Bundesliga games (four draws, four defeats), longer than against any other Bundesliga team.

Home and Away: Borussia Dortmund have lost three of their last four games in the Signal Iduna Park, but have only failed to score in one of their last 19 home matches. Their last home win came on 23 September when they won 6-1 against Mönchengladbach. Hoffenheim have only won one of their last five away games: on 5 November, when they won 3-0 away at Cologne. BVB have won their last five home games against TSG: four in the Bundesliga, one in the cup.

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Personnel: Up to ten players are unavailable for Borussia Dortmund – Götze,Piszczek, Reus, Schürrle, Philipp, Castro, Larsen, Sancho, Rode and Durm, while TSG Hoffenheim need only forgo the services of the suspended Geiger (five yellow cards).

Head to Head: BVB have only lost one of their last 11 home matches (league and cup) against TSG: on 18 May 2013, when they lost 1-2. The win meant Hoffenheim climbed into the relegation play off place in the table. Two penalties taken by Sejad Salihovic turned the game around. There have been seven red cards in the 20 games between the two teams (18 Bundesliga matches, two cup games), three of which for Dortmund, and there have been seven penalty kicks, three of which against Dortmund. BVB have only failed to score once at home to TSG, in a 0-0 draw on 28 February 2009.

The Statistics: Borussia Dortmund have always scored at least one goal in their last 13 league games. A total of 37 goals this season is the best of any club. Only three teams have scored more goals than Hoffenheim (26). Only Bayern Munich have kept more clean sheets than TSG (six games without conceding).

Greatest Home Win: There have been three 3-1 wins, the last on 28 February 2016.

Attendance: Hoffenheim have just returned 350 tickets for seated places. Therefore, the game is not yet sold-out. There will come 2,100 fans from Sinsheim. 

Referee: Harm Osmers will officiate a fixture involving BVB for the first time. The young referee from Hanover aged 32-years-old took charge of his first league game on 10 September 2016, when he oversaw the match between SC Freiburg and Borussia Mönchengladbach (3-1), and has since refereed a total of 15 league matches. Florian Heft and Thomas Gorniak will serve as the linesmen in the game against TSG Hoffenheim. Guido Kleve is the fourth official. Marco Fritz and Sven Jablonski will be the video assistants.

Compiled by Boris Rupert