Cologne-Borussia Dortmund preview

After securing a record 20th game without defeat last weekend, and then reaching the DFB-Pokal final in the week, Borussia Dortmund travel to Cologne this Sunday looking to continue a run of form that bears all the hallmarks of a Championship-winning side. In defeating Werder Bremen 1-0 at the Westfalenstadion thanks to an early goal from the in-form Shinji Kagawa, Jürgen Klopp’s side ensured that they entered the 27th round of the 34-game season with a five-point cushion over second-placed Bayern Munich. The Bavarian side, who have a far superior goal difference to Dortmund thanks primarily to their recent thrashings of Hoffenheim and Hertha BSC, will meet Dortmund later on this season in the German Cup final, after they defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach on Wednesday – one day after Klopp’s side put plucky 2. Bundesliga-leaders Greuther Fürth to the sword.

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Borussia Mönchengladbach-Hoffenheim preview

Champions League qualification hopefuls Borussia Mönchengladbach will be looking to forget their midweek German cup heartache as they host a Hoffenheim side who remain too close to the relegation zone for comfort. Gladbach suffered a penalty shootout defeat to Bayern Munich – a side they have beaten twice this season – on Wednesday at the semi-final stage of the DFB-Pokal, thereby ensuring that the club’s dream-like campaign will end without silverware. Hoffenheim can only fantasise about being where Lucien Favre’s side are, however, as even since Markus Babbel took over as coach at the Sinsheim side a few weeks ago, results haven’t exactly improved.

Like Holger Stanislawski, his predecessor on the Hoffenheim bench, Babbel is struggling to get the team going after club patron Dietmar Hopp commissioned the sales of several star players in the January transfer window (in a move that suggests the board have now perhaps realised their folly, sporting director Ernst Tanner left the club this week). One of those players was creative-midfielder Gylfi Sigurðsson, who is currently in fantastic form for Wales’ second-biggest club, Swansea City, in the English Premier League. Another, Vedad Ibišević, scored twice last weekend as Stuttgart – the side Babbel played for and then coached between 2004 to 2009 – comfortably defeated an invention and confidence-lacking Hoffenheim team by two goals to one. It’s not just players who have been sold this season giving Babbel headaches either – Ryan Babel has intimated that he is ready for a new challenge, Roberto Firmino has been out of form for months now after a scintillating start to the current Bundesliga campaign, and Sejad Salihović was recently handed a two-week suspension for a breach of club discipline by Babbel, who is not yet even a quadragenarian.