Frankfurt (9-4-6, 31 points) will face Bundesliga leaders, Borussia Dortmund (15-3-1, 48 points.)
Frankfurt had a lot of key players and their coach Kovac leaving at summer break and were expected to play a difficult season. Their start was very difficult 1-1-3 out of first 5 matches and got eliminated at DFB Cup against the 4th league team of Ulm.
Coach Hütter was already under pressure and most fans expected a very dangerous season for them with all the changes and that bad start. But surprisingly, they won against Marseille at their first Europa League match. They boosted their morale and started a winning streak which was never expected. At Europa League, this has been their best performance ever: 6 matches, 6 wins and qualified for playoffs.
At Bundesliga, they have won 6 of the following 7 matches and especially their offensive 3 players Haller, Rebic and Jovic are almost unstoppable. Coach is mostly playing 3-5-2 formation with the very active wing players Da Costa and Kostic, who played a fantastic season so far. At the end of last year, they had some injury problems, especially in defense with Abraham and Hasebe out and at this part they struggled with results.
They have only 1 win out of last 5 matches in 2018. This year, Hasebe is fully fit again, but Abraham is still struggling with slight injuries and big form problems. Mexican defender Salcedo got sold, and other defenders are old and slow like Russ or Fallette (should also leave the team in Summer).
Only Hasebe and Ndicka are playing strong season at defense. The other 3 have a lot of problems, especially because of speed and individual mistakes. Against Bremen, surprisingly Ndicka was only benched and Fallette showed a poor performance so he should be changed reverse again for this match.
About Dortmund Coach Favre, was the best that could happen to Dortmund major impact, especially on their defense and looking much more stable than last season.
The key signings were Axel Witsel and Delaney, who are like a big wall in central midfield and they are doing almost none mistakes all season. The defense only allowed 19 goals all season and GK Bürki is playing the best season of his career so far, with a lot of great saves and rated best GK in 2018 in Germany.
Based on this defensive stability, it is pretty easy for the offensive and creative players to perform on another top level.
Especially captain Marco Reus is doing an impressive season so far (13 goals, 6 assists – best scorer of the league). Also, Paco Alcacer (12 goals), Jadon Sancho (6 goals, 9 assists) are doing a great job upfront and hard to stop for any team. They have an away record of 6-2-1, 2nd best away team of the league; only Bayern won more away games (6 of last 7 won).
Dortmund is still full of confidence and beat Leipzig 1:0 away at a very close match and took the edge of the game by winning against one of the strong rivals.
Also, next home match delivered a clear 5:1 win against Hannover with a strong 2nd half performance. In defense some missing players but midfielder Weigl is a great replacement so far for Akanji who is missing for several weeks.
I know both teams are really good. When living in Frankfurt, I watched many matches from them, and on the other side, I am big fan for Borussia Dortmund since I am a child.
Against Freiburg, Frankfurt won 3:1 but in first half had big problems to create anything and scored from a set piece at corner kick and followed 2 more goals, so the first 3 shots ended with 3 goals by all of their top strikers. Against Gladbach they were again not on their top level and 2:2 was luckier for them as Bremen was better team overall.
Lately, I am missing transition game from midfield to offensive and to assist their 3 top players upfront, due to no creative midfielder and teams better prepared for Frankfurt playing style.
Frankfurt is known for playing offensive and open matches often some goal fests, Dortmund also should be happy not to play against a defensive wall like in many of their matches.
I am pretty confident that Dortmund will get at least a draw here. Odds raised and now is a great value with this AHC line. Therefore, you should open a VIP-IBC account via an agent and get ready to win!