Two of the Bundesliga's European hopefuls for the season meet in the highlight match of the weekend on Saturday evening, as Bayer Leverkusen host Borussia Monchengladbach.
Both sides began their campaigns with 1-1 draws on the opening weekend, so will be looking for their first league wins at BayArena.
Match preview
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New Leverkusen manager Gerardo Seoane began his Bundesliga tenure with a 1-1 draw away to Union Berlin last weekend, which is a positive result when considering the home record of the Berlin side.
His side dominated possession for large parts of the game and created plenty of chances in what was an impressive performance to start the campaign.
Seoane has arrived this summer after the sacking of Peter Bosz in March and the interim term of Hannes Wolf coming to an end in June. The Swiss manager left Young Boys, where he won three straight Swiss Super League titles, to move to Germany and leaves behind the best points-per-game ratio in the league's history.
He will look to improve on a disappointing sixth-place finish last term by aiming to lead his Leverkusen side back into the Champions League.
Prior to the Union Berlin draw, pre-season had been a rather short one at Leverkusen. A single draw followed by an embarassing 5-1 defeat at home to FC Utrecht meant preparations had not been ideal.
However, a comfortable 3-0 win over amateur side Lokomotive Leipzig in the first round of the DFB-Pokal followed to end the warm-up to the new Bundesliga season on a positive note.
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A new man in charge at Monchengladbach also started his tenure with a 1-1 draw in his first league match of the new campaign. Adi Hutter saw his side play out an entertaining encounter with champions Bayern Munich in the season opener last Friday evening.
Hutter has big shoes to fill after replacing the departed Marco Rose, who left to join the vacancy at Borussia Dortmund, despite the disappointing campaign last year.
Die Fohlen's form tailed off considerably towards the end of the season, which coincided with the announcement of Rose's imminent departure. An eighth-place finish was well below-par for a side that would miss out on European competition entirely after regular appearances in the Champions League and Europa League in recent years.
The draw with Bayern started positively for Monchengladbach and they capitalised on their bright start by taking the lead after only 10 minutes through Alassane Plea. However, once Bayern grew into the game, it was backs to the wall for large parts, and goalkeeper Yann Sommer's heroics ensured the points were shared.
Prior to the opening league game, Hutter's preparations for the new campaign were ideal, as his new side enjoyed three wins from five pre-season friendlies and then followed that with a 1-0 win over FC Kaiserslautern in the first round of the DFB-Pokal.
The new man will be looking to improve his new side's recent form against Saturday's opponents, as they have lost their last three meetings with Leverkusen, conceding eight goals in the process.
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Team News
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Leverkusen striker Patrik Schick has struggled to replicate his stunning Euro 2020 goalscoring form throughout his club career in Germany so far but he started the opening match last weekend and will continue to do so here.
Manager Seoane has a number of various absentees to deal with heading into Saturday's match.
The young star of last season Florian Wirtz has missed the beginning of the season with a groin injury but has recently returned to individual training. He remains doubtful and will most likely have to settle for a place on the bench if he is deemed fit enough for a place in the squad.
Full-back Jeremie Frimpong is also a doubt, while new recruit Piero Hincapie is unavailable due to quarantining after his arrival.
Lucas Alario (groin), Karim Bellarabi (thigh), Timothy Fosu-Mensah (knee) and Edmond Tapsoba are also ruled out for the visit of Monchengladbach.
Meanwhile, teenager Joe Scally made his Bundesliga debut for Monchengladbach last Friday in the absence of regular full-back Ramy Bensebaini; he is set to keep his place despite the recent return to training of the regular.
Denis Zakaria continues to lack match fitness and also seeks a move away from the club reportedly so may not make the squad again.
Mamadou Doucoure (achilles), Breel Embolo (thigh) and Kouadio Kone (knee) are unavailable for the visitors.
Bayer Leverkusen possible starting lineup:
Hradecky; Retsos, Kossounou, Tah, Bakker; Aranguiz, Palacios; Diaby, Demirbay, Amiri; Schick
Borussia Monchengladbach possible starting lineup:
Sommer; Lainer, Ginter, Elvedi, Scally; Kramer, Neuhaus; Hofmann, Stindl, Thuram; Plea
We say: Bayer Leverkusen 2-1 Borussia Monchengladbach
We expect Leverkusen to continue their impressive recent record over Monchengladbach here, with home advantage playing an important part. It will probably be a tight match between two of the teams seeking European qualification, but Leverkusen should just edge this one.
Top tip
Matthew Tranter
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Bayer Leverkusen win with a probability of 47.07%. A win for Borussia Monchengladbach had a probability of 29.48% and a draw had a probability of 23.4%.
The most likely scoreline for a Bayer Leverkusen win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.34%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (8.05%) and 2-0 (7.01%). The likeliest Borussia Monchengladbach win was 1-2 (7.16%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.73%). The actual scoreline of 4-0 was predicted with a 1.8% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Bayer Leverkusen would win this match.
