Next Friday, 13th of February 2015, a Borussia Dortmund in need of points will entertain Mainz at a predictably packed Westfalenstadion for round 21 of the Bundesliga, on a match that BVB need to win in order to restore the team’s fragile motivation levels and to try to escape the depths of the relegation zone.

After a disappointing home defeat against Augsburg in the middle of last week, Borussia Dortmund have finally granted their first win of the new year by beating Freiburg last Saturday. It was an overall solid win from Jürgen Klopp’s boys, that against all the odds managed to put up a quality performance and superior finishing efficiency to go along with. Dortmund took advantage from a childish mistake of Freiburg’s defence line and opened the score very early in the match by the versatile German forward Marcos Reus. The visitors continued to pile on the pressure and on the second-half the Gabonese super striker, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, netted in two goals in just 15 minutes, allowing his team to return to wins at Bundesliga two months after they had snatched the three points for the last time.

Dortmund looked fairly more confident on the match against Freiburg last weekend, especially when compared to the team’s recent league matches. The team showed some attractive football and although that did allow their opponent to enjoy from more ball possession, they managed to place 12 shots on goal and a total of 22 goal attempts.

The upcoming fixture against Mainz will be of the utmost importance for the former European champions but it will certainly not be an easy match, especially if we have in mind that their opponents are also in dire need for points. For that particular clash, Jürgen Klopp will probably still not be able to rely on the services of Sebastian Kehl, Lars Bender, Kevin Grosskreutz and Alomerovic, all of them currently sidelined due to injury.

As for Mainz, they have also been going through some inconsistency moments so far this season. After a rampant 5-0 win over Paderborn for their new year’s first league match, Mainz granted a valuable away draw at Hannover. The team appeared to be on a very positive run, but last weekend they failed to continue their good stint and lost 2-0 to Hertha Berlin at home.

Mainz have only won once away from home so far this season but they will travel to Westfalenstadion in an attempt to replicate the performance and respective win they achieved against Dortmund last September.

Despite Dortmund’s blatant inconsistency this season, they are firm favourites for next Friday’s fixture against Mainz.

Borussia Dortmund

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - WLDDW

Mainz

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - LDWDL

Possible Line-ups

Borussia Dortmund (4-2-3-1) - Weidenfeller - Piszczek - Subotic - Hummels - Schmelzer - Sahin - Gundogan - Mkhitaryan - Kagawa - Reus - Aubameyang

Mainz (4-2-3-1) - Kapino - Brosinski - Bell - Jara - Bengtsson - Baumgartlinger - Geis - Clemens - Malli - De Blasis - Okazaki

Prediction

Borussia Dortmund 3 Mainz 0