Dortmund
He is on the last position on the podium in the Bundesliga, with 37 points, a point less than second place, vice-champion Leipzig and 1 point more than occupying the 4th position, Eintracht Frankfurt.
He comes after two consecutive victories in the championship, which has succeeded in a series of 3 draws, indicating a rebound visible to the band shape coached by new team technician Peter Stöger.
It qualified for this stage of the Europa League just because of better goal average than the band Cypriot APOEL Nicosia he had in the Champions League, where he managed to get only two points in a group which has been part of Real Madrid and Tottenham.
He gave up this winter to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s services he sold to Arsenal, replacing him with Michy Batshuayi coming in as a Chelsea loan.
He comes after a home win in front of the Hamburg team, 2: 0, the two goals of the game coming in the second leg, being scored by Batshuayi and Mario Gotze.
He has not less than 7 injured players, unavailable for this match: Durm, Yarmolenko, Guerreiro, Philipp, Schmelzer, Sancho and Sebastian Rode.
The probable team for this match, 4-1-4-1 game system: Burki; Piszczek, Sokratis, Toprak, Toljan; Weigl; Pulisic, Kagawa, Gotze, Schurrle; Batshuayi.
Atalanta
He occupies the 8th position in Serie A, with 37 points, 1 point less than the 7th place, Ac Milan and 1 point more than the 9th place in FC Torino.
He crosses a fairly good time, succeeding with the end of the Europa League group stage to win more and more points away, where he was bad enough after 15 stages of the championship, having no victory.
He earned emotionlessly the Europa League Group E, which included Lyon, Everton and Apollon Limassol, winning all three home games and managing to set off on the Everton team, with 1: 1 draw on the other 2 lands.
Comes after a draw taken away, the land team Crotone score 1: 1 match in which the hosts opened the scoring on 80 minutes through midfielder Mandragora, defender Palomino managed to equalize in the 88th minute, guests passing by the victory of one of the last phases of the game.
The probable team for this match, game system 3-4-1-2: Berisha; Palomino, Caldara, Masiello; Hateboer, Freuler, De Roon, Spinazzola; Cristante; Cornelius, Gomez.
Direct meetings
The two teams have not met in an official match but only once in a friendly match, with Atalanta managing to score in the summer on 1 August with a score of 1: 0, the only goal the game was scored by Slovenian Ilicic (photo).
My tip: Dortmund vs Atalanta
I will count on the fact that this match is played on the Dortmund team, a team that is slightly more valuable than the Italian one, and so are the premises for an open match, not exactly what will be in Bergamo, in the one-week return, where probably the German team will play more defensively than in this match.
I am also counting on the return of the form of Peter Stöger, Dortmund with 2 consecutive victories in the championship, 3: 2 on the field of Cologne and 2: 0 on his own field with Hamburg.
Atalanta is not only one of the biggest surprises of this Europa League edition, it is also a team that regularly scores this season in a single match, failing to score any goals in the defeat of “Meazza” with Inter, score 2: 0, so there are great chances to score in this match.
Our Prediction: Over 2,5 goals @ 1.67
