Borussia Dortmund will welcome Eintracht Frankfurt to the Signal Iduna Park this Saturday as the Black and Yellow look to begin life without Jadon Sancho for the first time in four seasons just as the Eagles start their chapter with Oliver Glasner.
Frankfurt have witnessed Adi Hutter depart this summer and they acted quickly with the addition of Glasner, who joined the club from Wolfsburg despite guiding them into the Europa League in his first year and the Champions League just last season.
The Austrian will have to keep this European momentum up, however, despite the arguable decrease in expectation in joining Wolfsburg from Frankfurt, as his new club finished fifth last year and will compete in the Europa League for the third time in 14 years.
This fifth-placed finish for the club was their highest finish in the Bundesliga since 1993, and without Andre Silva who scored 28 goals in 32 league appearances last time out, it’s hard to see them progressing without him.
In fact, those 28 goals were a good chunk of the impressive 69 the club scored, which was only bettered by champions Bayern Munich last time out and they may end up slipping away this season as a result.
As for Dortmund, however, they have their own transfer issues to worry about. Sancho has indeed left for Manchester United, leaving a huge gap on the right wing of their team - a position which delivered countless goal contributions over the past four seasons.
This hasn’t stopped Erling Haaland just yet though, who netted yet another hat-trick for BVB last time out, as his treble sealed their place in the next round of the DFB-Pokal against Wehen Wiesbaden.
Frankfurt, on the other hand, were embarrassed by SV Waldhof of the third tier in their DFB-Pokal match, who beat the Bundesliga outfit 2-0 in what was actually quite a comfortable win for the 3. Liga side.
The void left behind by these two star names for either side makes their season quite tough to predict, especially as Silva has joined RB Leipzig, who could now jump above a Sancho-less Dortmund in the league table.
However, we do expect the home side to win here and continue their positive start to the season, with Haaland already off to a flyer. Frankfurt will need to find something special to beat Dortmund, who will also welcome back their famous fans to the ground, and we can see a 3-1 result here on Marco Rose's league debut with them.