Signal Iduna Park plays host to the first leg of this UEFA Champions League semi-final tie on Wednesday. We look ahead to the game with our Borussia Dortmund vs PSG prediction and preview.
Borussia Dortmund vs PSG Stats: The Quick Hits
- A close contest is anticipated ahead of Wednesday’s first leg in Germany, with Borussia Dortmund given a 35.7% chance of victory to Paris Saint-Germain’s 39.6%.
- Dortmund are unbeaten in their last 10 UEFA Champions League home games (six wins, four draws), their longest ever such run in the competition.
- Kylian Mbappé has eight Champions League goals this season, his joint-best return in a single campaign (alongside 2020-21). He is just two away from reaching 50 Champions League goals and has scored a brace in each of his last two away games in the competition.
Match Preview
Paris Saint-Germain were crowned Ligue 1 champions for the 12th time on Sunday, but the UEFA Champions League trophy is the prize Qatar Sports Investment have always craved above all else. Having seen the draw open up for them, PSG enter their semi-final tie with Borussia Dortmund as favourites to reach their first final since 2020. No trip to Signal Iduna Park is easy, however, as the Parisians themselves can attest.
PSG have never won an away match against Dortmund, losing once and drawing twice on their three visits there, including a 1-1 draw in this season’s Champions League group stage. However, the Opta supercomputer is siding with Luis Enrique’s men ahead of the tie, giving them a 62.5% chance of reaching the final to Dortmund’s 37.5%.
PSG actually missed the chance to wrap up their third-straight domestic title with a win on Saturday, as they required Achraf Hakimi and Gonçalo Ramos to net late on while fighting back to a 3-3 draw at home to Le Havre. They didn’t have to wait long to see their glory confirmed, though, as closest rivals Monaco lost 3-2 at Lyon on Sunday.
With one eye on Wednesday’s match, Luis Enrique limited Kylian Mbappé to 45 minutes off the bench on Saturday. His eight goals in the Champions League this season are more than any other player and represent his joint-best return in a single campaign in the competition, also netting eight times in 2020-21.
Mbappé needs just two more goals to bring up a half-century in the competition, a feat only eight other players have accomplished, and he has scored a brace in each of his last two away games in the competition – against Real Sociedad in the last 16 and Barcelona in the quarter-finals.
PSG’s tie against Barca – which they won 6-4 on aggregate – turned on a fine strike from Vitinha, who dragged them level on aggregate in Catalonia before Mbappé finished the Blaugrana off.
Presnel Kimpembe is PSG’s only big-name absentee for Wednesday’s game, while Fabián Ruiz should return to their lineup after being rested against Le Havre.
Dortmund currently stand to be the beneficiaries if Germany, as expected, claim a fifth Champions League qualification spot for next season, with Edin Terzić’s men languishing outside the Bundesliga’s top four after Saturday’s crushing 4-1 defeat to RB Leipzig.
Jadon Sancho put BVB ahead with a curling strike from near the corner of the area, but they couldn’t hold onto that advantage as Marco Rose enjoyed a big win over his former club. Terzić will hope that goal represents a sign of things to come from Sancho, though, with the Manchester United loanee also creating a team-high three chances (level with Julian Brandt) and leading all players on the pitch for passes in the final third (30) in the defeat.
Dortmund harnessed the power of the iconic Yellow Wall in their quarter-final tie with Atlético Madrid, winning a topsy-turvy second leg 4-2 on home soil to advance. Marcel Sabitzer’s low drive sent BVB through 5-4 on aggregate, after the Austrian had laid on goals for both Brandt and Niclas Füllkrug.
Sabitzer now has five assists in the Champions League this season; only Ousmane Dembélé has ever recorded more in a single campaign for Dortmund, managing six in 2016-17.
Dembélé will, of course, be a man for Dortmund to be wary of when he returns to Germany on Wednesday, with Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham the only player to match the Frenchman’s 11 chances created following a carry in this season’s tournament.
Some might say Dortmund have enjoyed good fortune en route to the semi-finals, with their average of 1.8 expected goals against (xGA) per Champions League game in 2023-24 the most of any team to progress beyond the group stage.
They have conceded 10 goals fewer than expected based on their quality of shots faced in this year’s tournament (eight goals conceded from 18 xGA, excluding own goals), while goalkeeper Gregor Kobel has prevented three goals, according to Opta’s expected goals on target (xGOT) model.
Dortmund are hoping to have key defender Mats Hummels available after he was forced off at Leipzig, but they will likely be without Sébastien Haller after the striker sustained an ankle injury.
Borussia Dortmund vs PSG Head-to-Head
The teams played out a 1-1 draw when they last met on the final matchday of this season’s group stage in December, with Warren Zaïre-Emery cancelling out Karim Adeyemi’s opener to ensure PSG followed already-qualified Dortmund into the last 16.
Three months earlier, PSG had beaten BVB 2-0 at the Parc des Princes in their Group F opener, with Mbappé and Hakimi on target.
This is the first time two teams have faced off in the group stage and the semi-finals in a single Champions League campaign since 2012-13, when Dortmund were reunited with Real Madrid and eliminated them in the last four.
Might that be a good omen for Wednesday’s hosts? They have a poor overall record against PSG, only winning one of their last six matches against them in all competitions (three draws, two losses).
That lone victory came by a 2-1 scoreline in the first leg of a Champions League last-16 tie in 2019-20, but PSG turned it around to eliminate them 3-2 on aggregate.
Recent Form
Dortmund have been inconsistent of late, only winning two of their last six matches in all competitions (one draw, three losses) since a run of six straight wins in March, which culminated in a memorable 2-0 success against Bayern Munich.
PSG, meanwhile, have only lost one of their last 32 games in all competitions (22 wins, nine draws), though that defeat did come in the first leg of their last Champions League tie against Barcelona.
This will be PSG’s fourth appearance in the Champions League semi-finals, and they have lost all four games in their two previous two-legged ties at this stage (against Milan in 1994-95 and Manchester City in 2020-21), though they did beat Leipzig in a one-legged affair in 2019-20.
Dortmund are also preparing for their fourth Champions League semi-final appearance having only been eliminated at this stage once, at the hands of Madrid in 1997-98.
They reached the final in 1996-97 and 2012-13, lifting the trophy on the former occasion and finishing as runners-up on the latter.
BVB need to make home advantage count in the first leg, having gone unbeaten through their last 10 Champions League games at the Westfalenstadion (six wins, four draws), their longest ever run in the competition.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Wednesday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Borussia Dortmund vs PSG Predicted Lineups
Borussia Dortmund vs PSG Prediction
While PSG are the Opta supercomputer’s favourites to progress from the tie, this week’s first leg appears difficult to call.
Across 10,000 match simulations conducted ahead of kick-off, PSG were victorious in 39.6% of scenarios to Dortmund’s 35.7%, with 24.7% seeing the tie go back to Paris all square.
As mentioned, PSG are given a 62.5% chance of reaching the final to Dortmund’s 27.5%. The French side are second favourites to win the trophy at 30%, while the Germans are given a 14% chance of lifting the famous trophy at Wembley Stadium.
Borussia Dortmund vs PSG UCL Squads
Dortmund: Gregor Kobel, Alexander Meyer, Silas Ostrzinski, Marcel Lotka, Nico Schlotterbeck, Ramy Bensebaini, Mats Hummels, Emre Can, Niklas Süle, Julian Ryerson, Ian Maatsen, Lion Semic, Özcan, Jadon Sancho, Felix Nmecha, Marco Reus, Julien Duranville, Marius Wolf, Julian Brandt, Marcel Sabitzer, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Sebastien Haller, Niclas Füllkrug, Youssoufa Moukoko, Donyell Malen, Karim Adeyemi.
Head Coach: Edin Terzić
Paris Saint-Germain: Keylor Navas, Alexandre Letellier, Arnau Tenas, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Achraf Hakimi, Presnel Kimpembe, Marquinhos, Lucas Hernández, Nuno Mendes, Nordi Mukiele, Lucas Beraldo, Milan Skriniar, Manuel Ugarte, Fabián Ruiz, Danilo, Vitinha, Lee Kang-in, Warren Zaïre-Emery, Ethan Mbappé, Senny Mayulu, Kylian Mbappé, Gonçalo Ramos, Ousmane Dembélé, Marco Asensio, Randal Kolo Muani, Bradley Barcola.
Head Coach: Luis Enrique
Enjoy this? Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.