We look ahead to Wednesday’s Champions League game at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys with our Barcelona vs Borussia Dortmund prediction and preview.
Barcelona vs Borussia Dortmund Stats: The Key Insights
Barcelona are the favourites to win the first leg, victorious in 65.7% of pre-match simulations by the Opta supercomputer. Barcelona are unbeaten in their five meetings with Borussia Dortmund in European competition (W3 D2). Hansi Flick has won all six of his meetings with Dortmund across all competitions during spells with Bayern Munich and Barcelona.Barcelona are the new favourites to lift this season’s UEFA Champions League title, and for good reason ahead of their quarter-final first leg against Borussia Dortmund.
Hansi Flick’s team cruised into the last eight with a 4-1 aggregate victory over Benfica, becoming the third team in the competition’s history to reach 20+ quarter-finals, along with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
After edging the first leg 1-0 away from home, Lamine Yamal took centre stage to ensure Barça’s passage to the last eight, becoming the youngest player in Champions League history to score and assist in a match at 17 years and 241 days.
Barcelona have scored 32 Champions League goals this season, their most in a season since 2011-12 (35). The only other campaign they’ve managed more than their 32 goals this term was in 1999-00 (45 goals, a competition record).
But their dominance in the competition has been helped by Flick. In 28 games in the Champions League with Bayern and Barcelona, he has seen his teams score 89 goals, an average of 3.2 goals per game, which is the best of any manager in the competition’s history to take charge of at least one game.
Their success in the final third has been spearheaded by Raphinha, who has been directly involved in 16 goals in 10 appearances in the Champions League this season (11 goals, 5 assists). Only Lionel Messi in 2011-12 has had a hand in more in a single edition for Barcelona (19 – 14 goals, 5 assists).
But their scoring exploits have not been limited to the Champions League. They have also scored the most goals of any team across Europe’s top five leagues (141).
Flick’s team do, however, come into Wednesday’s clash off the back of a disappointing 1-1 draw with Real Betis in La Liga. Though they still hold a four-point lead over second-placed Real Madrid, it could have been more after Carlo Ancelotti’s side were beaten at home by Valencia earlier on Saturday.
And they face a Dortmund side who are beginning to click into gear under Niko Kovac. They are now just five points adrift of a Champions League berth in the Bundesliga after their 4-1 thumping of Freiburg at the weekend.
Kovac is yet to lose in the Champions League since taking over from Nuri Sahin, who was sacked in late January.
Dortmund booked their place in the quarter-finals with a 3-2 aggregate victory over Lille, progressing to the last eight of the Champions League for the ninth time, making it to this stage in consecutive seasons for the first time since doing so in 2012-13 and 2013-14.
They have been led by Serhou Guirassy, who is the joint-second top scorer in the competition with 10 goals, behind only Raphinha (11).
His 14 goal involvements in the Champions League this season for Dortmund (10 goals, 4 assists) is also the joint-most by an African player in a single campaign in the competition, along with Mohamed Salah in 2017-18.
The two teams have already met in the competition this season, doing so during the league phase, with Barcelona winning 3-2 at Signal Iduna Park thanks to Ferran Torres’ second-half brace. The Spaniard became just the fourth substitute to score two or more goals in a Champions League match for Barça (after Messi in 2008 vs Shakhtar Donetsk, Cristian Tello in 2012 vs Bayer Leverkusen and Ivan Rakitic in 2015 vs BATE Borisov).
Flick’s team also inflicted Dortmund’s first home defeat in the competition since November 2021 (3-1 vs Ajax), ending their longest run of matches without a loss on home soil in the Champions League.
In terms of team news, Dortmund were dealt a huge blow when it was confirmed that centre-back Nico Schlotterbeck was ruled out for the remainder of the season after tearing his meniscus in his left knee.
In his absence, Kovac went with a back three of Emre Can, Waldemar Anton and Ramy Bensebaini at the weekend, and may do the same here.
Barcelona will be without Dani Olmo after he suffered an adductor injury shortly after scoring against Osasuna in La Liga at the end of March, but Iñigo Martínez, who missed the 1-1 draw with Betis at the weekend, is expected to be fit to play some part in the contest.
Barcelona vs Borussia Dortmund Head-to-Head
Barcelona are unbeaten in their five meetings with Dortmund in European competition (W3 D2), including victory over them in December. Only against Lyon (8), Napoli (6) and Werder Bremen (6) have they played more often in Europe without losing.
Across his spells with Bayern Munich and Barça, Flick has won all six of his meetings with Dortmund. It is his best 100% record against an opponent in this period. His sides have averaged three goals per game against them (18 in total), and netted at least three goals in five of the six matches.
BVB, meanwhile, have not won any of their five games against Barcelona (D2 L3); they’ve only gone six consecutive European matches without beating an opponent against two other sides, one of which is another Spanish team (6 vs Real Madrid in 2024, along with 7 vs Rangers in 1999).
They have also only won three of their 20 away matches against Spanish opponents in European competition (D5 L12), while they’ve only won one of the 10 such matches in the knockout stages (D2 L7): 3-2 v Sevilla in the last 16 of the Champions League in February 2021.
But Dortmund have only lost one of their last eight games in the knockout stages of the Champions League (W5 D2), with that lone defeat coming against Real Madrid in last season’s final (2-0). They’ve won each of their last three away games in the knockout stages, more than they had in their previous 17 such matches combined (D4 L11).
Barcelona vs Borussia Dortmund Prediction
Barcelona are the overwhelming favourites to take a first-leg lead over to Germany, coming out on top in 65.7% of our pre-match data-led simulations.
A draw is handed an 18.2% chance of happening, while Dortmund are given a 16.1% probability of coming into the second leg with an aggregate league.
Of the sides remaining in the competition, Barcelona are given the highest probability of reaching the semi-finals with 78%. The La Liga leaders have a 22.6% chance of going all the way and lifting a sixth Champions League title, and their first since 2014-15.
Dortmund, meanwhile, are given a 22% chance of reaching the last four, the lowest of any of the eight teams, with Aston Villa slightly ahead of them (27.8%).
Barcelona vs Borussia Dortmund Predicted Lineups
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is 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, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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Barcelona vs Borussia Dortmund Prediction Opta Analyst.
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