BVB on a Sunday Evening
Union Travel to Dortmund
To conclude a busy week, the men's team of 1. FC Union Berlin will travel to Dortmund ofor the second game of the Bundesliga season. Kick off on Sunday, 31.08.2025, is at 17:30.
The lie of the land
Borussia Dortmund made it through the first round of the DFB Pokal with a narrow 1-0 victory against Rot-Weiss Essen. However, in their season opener in The Bundesliga, BVB dropped points through their 3-3 with FC St. Pauli.
Union, on the other hand, lived up to their favorites' role in Gütersloh, advancing to the next round of the Cup, which will be drawn on Sunday evening, with a 5-0 win. In the league, they started the new season with a 2-1 home win against VfB Stuttgart.
Nico Schlotterbeck, Niklas Süle, Emre Can and Filippo Mané – four names, one commonality: they all belong to the Dortmund defense, but all four will be missing on Sunday. This means coach Niko Kovač will have to rearrange his back lines.
One option could be new signing Aarón Anselmino. The 20-year-old Argentine arrived this week on loan from Chelsea to Strobelallee and is considered a candidate for the starting eleven. Additionally, the Schwarz-Gelben strengthened their squad this summer with Fabio Silva (Wolverhampton), Jobe Bellingham (Sunderland), Yan Couto (Manchester City), Patrick Drewes (Bochum), as well as Carney Chukwuemeka (Chelsea) and Daniel Svensson (Nordsjaelland), both of whom had previously played on loan in Dortmund.
BVB have also had an unusually short pre-season. After the Club World Cup – where they were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Real Madrid 3-2 – there was little time left for preparations. They followed up with an 8-1 win over Siegen, a 3-2 against OSC Lille, and a 2-1 home loss in Mats Hummels' farewell against Juventus.
The game on Sunday is the fifteenth competitive match between the clubs. Union have won four, Dortmund ten. This includes the two cup ties, both of which Dortmund won. The last time Union played at Signal Iduna Park, it ended in a heavy 6-0 defeat.
A reunion with old acquaintances is also on the agenda for Sunday. Tom Rothe moved from Dortmund to Berlin in the summer of 2024 having worn the black-and-yellow jersey for two years, playing seven competitive matches.
Conversely, Nico Schlotterbeck and Julian Ryerson are two former Union players playing for BVB, with Schlotterbeck set to miss the match due to injury. He played in 17 competitive matches for Union in the 2020/21 season, while Ryerson appeared in a total of 109 games for the Berliners between 2018 and 2023.
Union will be without Livan Burcu, Josip Juranović, Diogo Leite, Stanley Nsoki and Andrik Markgraf on Sunday
“It is a game where we know what to expect," said Union head coach, Steffen baumgart during his press conference on Thursday afternoon. "BVB have developed and showed a good 90 minutes against St. Pauli. They are good with the ball, but also have their ways and means against deep-lying opponents. The last game is history for us now, because we have also come a long way since then. Nevertheless, we need to be 100% there on Sunday to be successful."
Niko Kovac said, meanwhile: “The 6-0 against Union a few months ago cannot be taken as a benchmark. Union have changed their style of play tactically and they started the season with a win. They will be very physical – we need to stand up to that.”
Almost 3.300 Unioner are travelling to North Rhine-Westphalia. What to consider when visiting the stadium can be found here (German)
The match will be broadcast live by DAZN. In addition, there will be an audio stream on rbb24 Inforadio and on rbb24, and as usual, Union will also keep you informed via their club's own live ticker about the match in German. Live updates in English will be on Twitter and Bluesky.
