Bayer Leverkusen will travel to the majestic Signal Indunda Park and intimidating yellow wall on Saturday night as they look to start the new season with a bang. Leverkusen have had a quiet transfer window, but they did sign Czech Republic wonderkid Adam Hlozek from Sparta Prague for just short of £12 million.

Meanwhile, it has been a summer of change at Borussia Dortmund. Erling Haaland decided to leave to join Manchester City after they triggered his release clause. As a result, Dortmund have done a rebuild signing forwards Karim Adeyemi and Sebastian Haller to try and fill the void left by Haaland, as well as center backs Nico Schlotterbeck and Niklas Sule.

Leverkusen had a relatively good pre-season winning against MSV Duisburg and against Udinese. However, they also lost to third-tier SV Elversberg in the first round of the DFB Pokal. Dortmund had a mixed pre-season losing against Villarreal and Valencia, however, they won their first-round DFB Pokal match against 1860 Munich.

Team News

Borussia Dortmund

Dortmund head coach Edin Terzic has only got two major injury concerns. Striker Haller is set to miss out after being diagnosed with testicular cancer while center back Niklas Sule has a muscular injury. New signings Nico Schlotterbeck and Karim Adeyemi are expected to start as well as teenage wonderkid Youssoufa Moukoku

Bayer Leverkusen

Leverkusen head coach Gerardo Seoane has also only got two injury concerns. Winger Amine Adli is set to miss out with a torn tendon while teenage playmaker Florian Wirtz is set to miss out due to a lack of match fitness. It means new signing Hlozek is expected to start.

Likely Lineup

Borussia Dortmund: Kobel, Hummels, Meunier, Schlotterbeck, Guerreiro, Dahoud, Bellingham, Malen, Reus, Adeyemi, Moukoko

Bayer Leverkusen: Hradecky, Frimpong, Kossounou, Tapsoba, Bakker, Aranguiz, Andrich, Diaby, Azmoun, Hlozek, Schick

Key Players

Marco Reus(Borussia Dortmund)

Dortmund had a very good season last year managing to finish second ahead of their rivals such as Leverkusen and RB Leipzig, and while Erling Haaland received all the plaudits one player who did not receive as much credit but played just as big a role is Marco Reus.

Reus has been with Dortmund for a long time and is now the club's captain and at the age of 33, he is still a vital piece of Dortmund's machine. While not the most entertaining player to watch compared to others such as teammate Jude Bellingham, he is very effective in terms of not only providing assists but scoring goals.

Last season Reus managed 13 assists and 13 goals making him the second highest goalscorer last season behind Haaland. With the new signings potentially needing time to settle and the departure of Haaland, Dortmund will be looking to Reus to provide the spark for the first few weeks of the season.

 

Patric Schick(Bayer Leverkusen)

Leverkusen had a good season last year not only managing to finish third and secure champions league football for this season but also showing the amount of young quality footballers they have such as Florian Wirtz. However, by far the star of the show was striker Patric Schick.

For the last few seasons, Schick has been fighting with Robert Lewandowski and Haaland for the golden boot award but has always lost out. But now that both of the strikers are gone he stands a much better chance of winning the coveted prize.

Last season Schick played 27 games in the Bundesliga and got 24 goals which is staggering, and as a result, this season Leverkusen will hope he can match that figure or improve on it, and who knows if he does maybe Leverkusen win the Bundesliga.

The match looks to be an important one for both teams to lay down an early marker and showcase themselves as real title challengers this season. The match will be played at Signal Iduna Park.  Fans in the UK will be able to tune in to Sky Sports Football from 05:20 pm on Saturday to catch all the pre-match coverage with the match itself kicking off at 0530pm. 

 

 

 

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