Borussia Dortmund vs Darmstadt

Signal Iduna Park is the venue as Borussia Dortmund and Darmstadt go head-to-head in the Bundesliga season finale. 

There’s nothing but pride left to play for Dortmund on the final day after they secured a fifth-place finish with games to spare. However, Edin Terzic’s men must build momentum ahead of the upcoming Champions League final against Real Madrid, and last weekend’s 3-0 loss at relegation-threatened Mainz wasn’t an ideal start. That result remains Dortmund’s only defeat against sides outside the current top seven this season (W14, D6), suggesting complacency might have crept in. In fact, Die Borussen have only won once in their four most recent league outings (D1, L2). High scoring has been a common theme in that sequence, with three of those four games featuring over 2.5 goals, while two seeing 4+ goals and both teams on the scoresheet.

In the meantime, dead-last Darmstadt are the only relegated side in the Bundesliga ahead of the final weekend after three consecutive league defeats left their dreadful seasonal tally at 17 points. Worryingly for the traveling fans, each of those three losses saw Darmstadt fail to score. Perhaps surprisingly, two of the visitors’ three top-flight wins this season have come on the road, though both arrived against the sides ranked 10th or worse. Defensive frailties have crippled Torsten Lieberknecht’s men on their travels, with only Bochum (41) conceding more away league goals than Darmstadt’s 38. Another thumping defeat is on the cards, considering they succumbed to a humiliating 6-0 loss on their last visit to Signal Iduna Park and lost 3-0 in January’s reverse fixture.