It’s hard to prepare for Chelsea, you don’t know what line-up they will play, says Dortmund coach

Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final will offer a very interesting duel between Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund. A loaded team full of winter signings is very unreadable for the opponents, as there could be several line-up options.

It is a duel that has no clear favourite. On paper, Chelsea are slightly stronger thanks to the winter strengthening, but that means nothing. Football is not played on paper, but on the pitch and that’s where the Blues have not been very strong recently.

Of their last eight games, Chelsea have won only once, a 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace. Before that they had a run of three defeats in a row, now for a change a run of three draws in a row.

Borussia Dortmund, on the other hand, are on a roll. The German side has won all six of its games after the winter break, with a healthy striker Sebastien Haller back and 19-year-old Jude Bellingham continuing to lead the team.

Borussia coach Edin Terzic will have a tough time preparing for his opponents. Chelsea made a huge splash in the winter and brought in several players with ambitions for the starting line-up.

“It’s not easy to prepare for them. A couple of players have left and a lot have come in. You don’t know exactly what kind of lineup they’re going to play here. As always, we will focus more on ourselves,” Terzic said at the press conference.

“We need to win at least one of the two games to advance to the next stage. Of course, it should be a little easier with the atmosphere of 80,000 home fans,” the Dortmund coach added.

A great atmosphere in Dortmund is a traditional thing, but now it will be even more ornate. For the Champions League, the legendary Südtribune always had to install seats and the capacity dropped from 80,000 to 60.

Against Chelsea, for the first time, UEFA allowed and allowed Borussia to keep the stand standing, as they do in the Bundesliga. Thus, for the first time ever, 80 thousand fans will see the Champions League at Signal Iduna Park.

Source: UEFA