We look ahead to Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League action with our Dortmund vs Atlético Madrid prediction and preview.
Dortmund vs Atlético Madrid Stats: The Quick Hits
- Borussia Dortmund are predicted to pick up a victory on the night against Atlético Madrid, winning 48.1% of pre-match Opta supercomputer simulations for this quarter-final second-leg clash. They are given just a 35% chance of winning the tie, though.
- Sébastien Haller is averaging a goal every 72 minutes in the Champions League, the best ratio of any player to score more than five goals.
- Dortmund have lost three of their last five (W2) and both of their last two Champions League meetings with Atlético.
Match Preview
Atlético Madrid will be hoping to capitalise on their first-leg advantage when they visit Borussia Dortmund for the return meeting of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie on Tuesday at Signal Iduna Park.
Rodrigo De Paul and Samuel Lino were on target at the Cívitas Metropolitano in last week’s first leg before an 81st-minute strike from Sébastien Haller offered Dortmund some hope of making the last four.
That took Ivory Coast international Haller to 12 goals in just 13 appearances in this competition (11 in eight for Ajax, one in five for Dortmund), averaging a strike every 72 minutes. That minutes-per-goal rate is the best in the history of UEFA’s top competition among the 415 players to have scored at least five times.
Nevertheless, Atlético hope to reach the last four of the UCL for the fourth time under Diego Simeone. Having achieved the feat already in 2013-14, 2015-16 and 2016-17, the only manager to get to the semis on more occasions with the same team is Alex Ferguson with Manchester United (seven).
That impressive one-club record embodies the commitment Simeone has shown to the red side of the Spanish capital, though Carlo Ancelotti has also reached the semis four times with Real Madrid, whose quarter-final tie with Manchester City is finely poised at 3-3.
It won’t come as a huge surprise if Atlético do get past Dortmund, though, as they’ve been ahead for 512 minutes of their 2023-24 Champions League campaign, more than any other side. Along with Man City (51%), they are the only two teams to have been leading for more than half of their total game time in the competition this term (57% for the La Liga side).
That productivity can be partly credited to the impressive Antoine Griezmann, whose 23 chances created in this year’s Champions League can only be bettered by Barcelona’s Ilkay Gündogan (24).
Indeed, the Frenchman teed up Lino’s strike in the first leg as part of six chances created, his most in a single Champions League outing for Atlético across 72 appearances. However, Edin Terzić’s side have their own attacking stars who could turn this contest around ahead of a potential semi-final meeting with either Paris Saint-Germain or Barcelona.
Jadon Sancho recorded 12 dribbles at the Metropolitano, the most by any player in the Champions League knockouts this season. In fact, the last three occasions of an Englishman recording 12+ dribbles in a game in the competition have all come from Sancho: 13 vs Zenit St Petersburg in October 2020 for Dortmund, 12 for Manchester United vs Atlético in March 2022 and 12 in the first leg.
At the other end of the pitch, Mats Hummels made his 500th appearance across all competitions for Dortmund in the first-leg defeat and will be tasked once again with trying to limit an Atlético attack that has been fruitful in the Champions League in 2023-24; only Man City (27) can better the 21 goals scored by Simeone’s men.
As for team news, Simeone will likely continue without Memphis Depay, Mario Hermoso and Thomas Lemar. That trio were all absent as Griezmann (2) and Ángel Correa struck in a 3-1 victory over Girona on Saturday.
Dortmund also come into this game on the back of a victory, having overcome Borussia Mönchengladbach 2-1 after a Marcel Sabitzer double, despite Karim Adeyemi’s 55th-minute red card. Terzić will hope to have Donyell Malen back for this clash, while Ramy Bensebaïni, Abdoulaye Kamara and Samuel Bamba are unlikely to return this season.
Dortmund vs Atlético Madrid Head-to-Head
Dortmund have lost three of their last five (W2) and both of their last two Champions League meetings with Atlético, though the German side were 4-0 winners the last time they hosted the La Liga club in the 2018-19 group stage.
That latter loss marks the Colchoneros’ joint-heaviest defeat across all competitions under Simeone, whose side have struggled against Bundesliga clubs in Europe.
Atlético have won just two of 10 away meetings against German sides in the European Cup/Champions League (D1 L7), while they have lost seven of their last eight such clashes under Simeone – including the last four in a row.
Dortmund, by contrast, have lost just two of their 13 Champions League home games against Spanish opposition (W5 D6) and are unbeaten in five knockout stage matches against such opponents (W3 D2).
Recent Form
Dortmund are unbeaten in their last nine games at Signal Iduna Park in the Champions League (W5 D4), so Terzić’s side will fancy their chances.
If Tuesday’s hosts manage to avoid defeat here, it will be the first time they’ve gone 10 consecutive home games in the European Cup/Champions League without losing – though only a two-goal victory would take them through this last-eight meeting without needing penalties.
They’re certainly not without hope, either, considering Dortmund have progressed through eight of 16 knockout ties in major European competition despite losing the first leg away from home.
BVB most recently did so in the 2016-17 last 16 against Benfica (0-1 away, 4-0 home), though only Juventus have been able to overcome such a deficit against Atlético in the Champions League – winning 3-0 at home after a 2-0 away defeat in 2018-19.
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 Tuesday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Dortmund vs Atlético Madrid Predicted Lineups
Dortmund vs Atlético Madrid Prediction
Dortmund need to win on the night and the Opta supercomputer backs them to at least do that, as the hosts triumphed in 90 minutes in 48.1% of 10,000 pre-match simulations.
A draw would be enough to send Atlético into the last four, with that result forecast in 27.4%, while an away victory was predicted 24.5% of the time in the same data-led model.
However, Dortmund have just a 35.0% chance of getting through the tie, as they will need at least a two-goal victory to win on aggregate, or else to beat their Spanish opponents on penalties. Atlético beat Inter Milan on spot-kicks in the last 16 to reach this stage.
Further down the line, Atlético have a 25.5% chance of getting to the final in Opta’s tournament simulations, which is more likely than Dortmund’s 15.9% hopes of making the UEFA showpiece.
Dortmund vs Atlético Madrid 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
Atlético Madrid: Horatiu Moldovan, Jan Oblak, José María Giménez, Gabriel, Stefan Savić, Nahuel Molina, Mario Hermoso, Reinildo, Rodrigo De Paul, Koke, Saúl Ñíguez, Thomas Lemar, Samuel Lino, Marcos Llorente, Rodrigo Riquelme, Arthur Vermeeren, Axel Witsel, Sergio Guerrero, Antoine Griezmann, Memphis Depay, Ángel Correa, Álvaro Morata, Álex Calatrava, Abdellah Raihani.
Head Coach: Diego Simeone
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