Borussia Dortmund vs Chelsea Prediction & Preview

Borussia Dortmund host Premier League club Chelsea on Wednesday night at the Westfalenstadion in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League round of 16 tie. We look ahead of the clash with our Opta-powered preview and prediction.

Borussia Dortmund vs Chelsea: The Quick Hits

• The Opta supercomputer predicts Borussia Dortmund are the most likely winners of this match, with home advantage key.
• Graham Potter looking to become just the second English manager to win a UEFA Champions League game away in Germany.
• Borussia Dortmund head into this match on a six-game winning streak, which is as many games as Chelsea have won in the last four months.

Match Preview

Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League meeting between Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea will be the first ever game between the two clubs.

The Bundesliga club haven’t got the best recent record against English teams in Europe, with BVB having won none of their last 10 games against Premier League opposition – losing eight and drawing two. Their last competitive victory against an English club side dates back to March 2016, when they defeated Tottenham Hotspur away in London in the UEFA Europa League (2-1) – both of their goals that day were scored by current Chelsea striker, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Chelsea will hope for more success than in their last European game away in Germany, where they lost 4-1 to Bayern Munich in August 2020 during Frank Lampard’s tenure as boss.

Current Chelsea manager Graham Potter will be looking to become just the second English coach to win away from home against German opposition in the UCL, emulating the feat of Sir Bobby Robson (who did it twice). Potter has done well at the Blues in Champions League action, with the former Brighton boss unbeaten in five games in the competition and winning each of the last four. Should Chelsea win this encounter, he’d become the first English manager to win five successive UCL games. It’ll be a tough ask for Chelsea and Potter, as Borussia Dortmund have lost just four of their last 21 Champions League matches at home (W10 D7 L4), although three of these defeats have come against English opponents – two defeats against Spurs (2-1 in 2017-18 and 1-0 in 2018-19) and one versus Man City (2-1 in 2020-21).

Recent Form

Borussia Dortmund are on a brilliant run of form. The German side have won all six competitive matches since the resumption of football post-World Cup, with five Bundesliga victories and one in the DFB Pokal against top-flight Bochum. This is their best winning run since their 10 wins in a row between April and August 2021.

Following the 2022 FIFA World Cup, BVB have shared the goals around the team, with no fewer than 10 different goalscorers in those six matches: Giovanni Reyna (three), Nico Schlotterbeck (two), Karim Adeyemi (two), Jamie Bynoe-Gittens (two), Julian Brandt (two), Emre Can, Marco Reus, Julian Ryerson, Jude Bellingham and Sébastien Haller have all got on the scoresheet.

Since Graham Potter took over at Chelsea from Thomas Tuchel in mid-September, the Blues have won just a third of their 23 competitive matches (nine). They are currently on a four-game unbeaten run in all competitions in which they’ve conceded only one goal, but the last three of these have all been draws (0-0s vs. Liverpool and Fulham and 1-1 vs. West Ham at the weekend).

Since Chelsea’s last UEFA Champions League fixture – a 2-1 home win over Dinamo Zagreb – Potter’s side have won just two of their 12 competitive games, losing three times as many matches (six) and drawing four. No Chelsea player has scored more than one goal for the club so far in 2023, with their four competitive goals in eight games coming via Kai Havertz, João Félix, Kalidou Koulibaly and Raheem Sterling.

In the 2022-23 Champions League, Chelsea topped Group E ahead of Italian giants Milan, Red Bull Salzburg and Dinamo Zagreb, with their only defeat coming in the opening game away in the Croatian capital.

Borussia Dortmund qualified for the round of 16 by finishing in second place behind Manchester City in Group G. Their nine-point tally in the group stage was the lowest of any team to qualify for the last 16, as they finished above LaLiga club Sevilla and FC Copenhagen. Their only defeat in the group came against Man City at the Etihad Stadium, in a match that they led until the 80th minute before goals from John Stones and former striker Erling Haaland turned the game around.

Players to Watch

Jude Bellingham

He may still be only 19 years old, but Jude Bellingham is an instrumental figure in Edin Terzić’s BVB side. Despite his teenage years, he was named as club captain in the summer, and has the ability to control the tempo of the game. Across all competitions in 2022-23, Bellingham has been involved in 135 different open-play sequences that have led to a BVB shot. Amazingly, Bellingham tops both the ‘shot attempted’ and ‘build-up involvement’ categories in the metric, showing how he is integral in building up play but also prominent in popping up and being on the end of chances. He really is a do-it-all midfielder.

Bellingham is Dortmund’s top scorer in all competitions this season (10 goals), while only Raphaël Guerreiro (seven) has more assists than the English midfielder (six). The former Birmingham City player also has the highest tally of completed passes in the opposition half across all of Borussia Dortmund’s competitive games in 2022-23 (683).

Enzo Fernández

If there is one player that Chelsea might be able to call upon to keep Bellingham in check, it’s arguably 2022 World Cup winner, Enzo Fernández.

Having signed from Benfica in January for a just shy of £107 million, the midfielder has impressed in his Premier League outings for Chelsea so far. Across his two performances against Fulham and West Ham, Fernández made the most tackles (nine), interceptions (four) and won regained possession for the Blues (17) more often than any other player, while completing 88% of his 171 passes.

Fernández was an integral part of the Benfica team that topped Group H ahead of Paris Saint-Germain in the group stages of the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League and Chelsea will hope he has just as positive an impact for them in the knockout stages of competition.

Borussia Dortmund vs Chelsea Prediction

The Opta supercomputer expects a tight affair in Germany on Wednesday night but gives Borussia Dortmund the slight advantage (38.7%) over Chelsea (34.4%).

Both of these clubs are ranked as outsiders for the UEFA Champions League title this season, with Dortmund given the seventh highest chance of winning the competition at 4.25% and Chelsea just below as ninth favourites (3.37%).

Bayern Munich are rated as the heavy favourites by the supercomputer (25.87%), ahead of Manchester City (18.87%), Serie A leaders Napoli (10.76%), reigning UCL winners Real Madrid (7.22%) and Liverpool (6.51%).