Fourth Time Lucky for Dortmund?
Ververidis Vasilis / Shutterstock.com
Eintracht Frankfurt will play Borussia Dortmund in the DFB Pokal final on Saturday night at the Olympiastadion, Berlin.
This will be the fourth in a row to feature Borussia Dortmund, who have a habit of reaching the final of Germany’s premier cup competition. In fact, Borussia Dortmund have contested four of the last five DFB Pokal finals, so this game is not a new experience for the club.
However, Borussia Dortmund have struggled in recent finals and have lost all the previous three, two at the hands of Bayern Munich and one to Wolfsburg. They did defeat Bayern Munich in the 2012 final and would like a repeat of the 5-2 scoreline from that day.
Eintracht Frankfurt are surprise finalists this year. You must go back to 2006 to find the last time they appeared in a DFB Pokal final and they lost that game 1-0 to Bayern Munich. Eintracht Frankfurt have won the DFB Pokal four times, with their last wins coming back in 1988.
Borussia Dortmund enjoyed a strong finish to their season and trends show they went seven matches unbeaten in the lead up to this final. Perhaps the biggest win in that sequence of games was the DFB Pokal semi-final victory over Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. That result set the tone for a decent finish to the Bundesliga season.
The match against Bayern Munich was easily Borussia Dortmund’s toughest match in their run to the DFB Pokal Cup final. In previous rounds they defeated Eintracht Trier, Union Berlin, Hertha Berlin and Sportfreunde Lotte, needing penalties on two occasions to progress.
Trends show Eintracht Frankfurt endured a tough end to the Bundesliga season, failing to win any of their last four matches, losing three of them. Their last victory came in the DFB Pokal and that was a 1-1 draw with Borussia Monchengladbach, before seeing them off on penalties.
Eintracht Frankfurt have won just two of their previous thirteen competitive matches and this is not the form you want when approaching a cup final. As one of those victories was via a penalty shootout, Eintracht Frankfurt have won only one game inside 90 minutes since the beginning of March, which is a poor record.
In the DFB Pokal Cup, Eintracht Frankfurt have defeated Magdeburg, Ingolstadt, Hannover 96 and Arminia Bielefeld. They required penalties twice, making it three times in total for the tournament this season.
Borussia Dortmund are without the injured duo of Mario Gotze and Julian Weigl but Lukasz Piszcek and Marcel Schmelzer are expected to recover and take their positions at full-back. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Marco Reus will lead the attack.
Omar Mascarell and Makoto Hasebe are out for Eintracht Frankfurt and Guillermo Varela has been suspended by the club.
Borussia Dortmund have lost only one of their previous eleven games in the DFB Pokal Cup and that defeat came on penalties in the final last season. They are the form team coming into this match and with Thomas Tuchel expected to leave in the summer, expect them to come out on the front foot and win this game by a couple of goals.
Home
Football 
Basketball
Hockey
American Football
Baseball
Rugby
Volleyball
Handball
Esoccer
