Sabah FK vs Borussia Dortmund: Underdogs Aim for Champions League Upset After Slavia Prague Win

Azerbaijani underdogs, Sabah FK, are getting ready to host the Champions League 2024 finalists, Borussia Dortmund to the Bank Respublika Arena on Tuesday night as they will look to build on the fantastic start made to this seasons competition.

Against the odds, Sabah beat established Champions League Czech side, Slavia Prague 2-0 last week in their first Champions League game and will be excitedly waiting to try and extend the positive start with a fairytale win over Dortmund.

For Dortmund, the start to this year’s Champions League campaign was nothing

short of underwhelming.

A poor 1-0 loss in Norway against a Bodo/Glimt outfit who made a name for themselves at home last season, would not have been how the renowned German giants will have anticipated their 2026/27 European venture to start.

Fortunately for The Black and Yellow, a mere week later they have the opportunity to right the wrongs of the first game as they come into this Tuesday’s match-up as the clear favourites despite Sabah getting their win last week.

Joy Lance-Mickels and Kaheem Parris were the two scorers for Sabah last week and Mickels in particular will be danger man again as the Rwandan tops the goalscoring charts for Sabah in all competitions this season with six goals.

Outside of European football, goals for Borussia Dortmund haven’t been flowing at as much of a prolific rate as they’d have liked with only 11 goals scored in the Bundesliga this season, the lowest of any team in the top eight.

Serhou Guirassy, Fabio Silva, and Felix Nmecha are all tied on two goals this season so far leaving The Black and Yellow struggling in front of goal.

Unfortunately for a front-line out of confidence, they face up against a goalkeeper

who excelled in the Champions League last time out.

Stas Pokatilov made six saves as Sabbah grabbed their first Champions League win and kept a clean sheet last game with their number 92 in between the posts taking a huge 8.7 rating on FutMob.

Availability news:

Valdas Dambrauskas finds himself in a fortunate position where huis squad are

suffering from no listed injuries or absences leading up the fixture so it is most likely

reasonable to expect a similar starting XI to last week.

Niko Kovac is not so lucky in that regard as Dortmund have four first team regulars

listed as unavailable this week.

Emre Can is out of contention with a knee injury as well as Giannis Konstantelias for

the same reason.

Youngster Justin Lerma is also out of the squad with a muscle injury whilst the unavailability list rounds of with Konstantinos Karestas out after picking up an ankle injury on Saturday which will sideline him into November.

The two sides are coming from very different openings to their Champions League

campaigns this year but despite their early loss, it is Dortmund who will be favourites

on Tuesday night after making the long trip to Azerbaijan.