Dortmund target double over Arsenal

Borussia Dortmund enjoyed an emphatic win in their first home game in Group F and will be hoping to enjoy similar superiority over Arsenal FC two weeks after winning in north London.

• Dortmund lost on matchday one at SSC Napoli before bouncing back with a 3-0 defeat of Olympique de Marseille. Arsenal first won away to OM and then beat Napoli at home but came unstuck at home to Dortmund, going down 2-1 as the German club joined their English rivals – and Napoli – on six points.

Previous meetings
• This is the second time the sides have been in the same UEFA Champions League group in three seasons.

• They met on opening night in 2011/12 when Robin van Persie pointed the Gunners towards victory in Germany before Ivan Perišić volleyed a superb late equaliser.

• The teams at the BVB Stadion on 13 September 2011 were:
Dortmund: Weidenfeller, Piszczek, Subotić, Hummels, Schmelzer, Kehl (Błaszczykowski 68), Bender, Götze, Grosskreutz (Perišić 68), Kagawa (Zidan 85) Lewandowski.
Arsenal: Szczęsny, Sagna, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Walcott (Frimpong 76), Song, Arteta, Benayoun, Van Persie (Chamakh 86), Gervinho (André Santos 86).

• In the return fixture Van Persie was twice on target which was enough to give Arsenal the points despite Shinji Kagawa's added-time response.

• The teams crossed swords in the 2002/03 first group stage – the last time Dortmund were involved before 2011/12. Arsenal won 2-0 in London before Dortmund turned the tables with a 2-1 win in Germany.

• Tomáš Rosický scored both the German team's goals, the second a penalty, after Thierry Henry had opened the scoring for the visitors. Sebastian Kehl also played for BVB.

Match background
• Dortmund, who are in their ninth participation in the UEFA Champions League, will be looking to go one step further than last year. In their most successful campaign since winning the 1997 UEFA Champions League, they remained unbeaten until the semi-final second leg when they went down 2-0 at Real Madrid CF.

• Jürgen Klopp's team won all six of their home games in last season's competition: against Real Madrid CF twice (2-1, 4-1), AFC Ajax and Manchester City FC (both 1-0), FC Shakhtar Donetsk (3-0) and Málaga CF (3-2). They lost the final at Wembley 2-1 to domestic rivals FC Bayern München.

• Dortmund beat Liverpool FC 2-1 in the final of the 1965/66 European Cup Winners' Cup having disposed of West Ham United FC 5-2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. The goal against in a 3-1 home win was the only time they conceded in their first four home games against English visitors before Henry's strike.

• Dortmund, who are looking for their eighth straight home victory in the UEFA Champions League, have never lost on their own ground to English visitors, winning four of the seven contests with three draws.

• Arsenal faced two Bundesliga sides last season, losing 2-0 at home to FC Schalke 04 before drawing 2-2 away, and 3-1 against Bayern in the round of 16 first leg, going out on away goals despite a 2-0 success in Munich. The matchday three defeat by Dortmund made it three successive home losses against Bundesliga clubs.

• Arsenal's away record against German clubs is W4 D4 L5; overall it is W13 D5 L9.

• The Gunners are in the group stage for the 16th season in a row. For the sixth time in eight campaigns they had to negotiate a qualifying round, dispatching Fenerbahçe SK 5-0 on aggregate in the play-offs with Aaron Ramsey scoring three times.

Team ties
• Rosický played for Dortmund between 2000 and 2006, scoring 19 goals in 149 Bundesliga games.

• Per Mertesacker, Mesut Özil and Lukas Podolski are team-mates with Mats Hummels, Marcel Schmelzer, Kevin Grosskreutz, Sebastian Kehl, İlkay Gündoğan and Marco Reus in the German national side.

• Arsenal goalkeepers Łukasz Fabiański and Wojciech Szczęsny play for Poland along with Jakub Błaszczykowski, Robert Lewandowski and Łukasz Piszczek.

• Jack Wilshere appeared as a second-half substitute in England's 2-0 win over Poland in a FIFA 2014 World Cup qualifier at Wembley on 15 October. Błaszczykowski and Szczęsny played the full game for the visitors, Lewandowski was replaced at half-time, and Kieran Gibbs was an unused substitute for the hosts.

• Podolski won the 2007/08 DFB-Pokal with Bayern in a 2-1 win against Dortmund after extra time. He scored twice against Dortmund in 14 encounters during his eight years with 1. FC Köln and Bayern between 2004 and 2012 with the record W3 D3 L8. 

• Özil played for Schalke and SV Werder Bremen from 2006 to 2010. He made eight appearances against Dortmund (W3 D2 L3) and scored for Bremen in a 1-1 draw on 8 November 2009.

• Özil faced Dortmund four times for Real Madrid in last season's UEFA Champions League. In the group stage his 89th-minute free-kick earned a 2-2 draw.

• Mertesacker scored two goals in 16 appearances against Dortmund during his career with Hannover 96 and SV Werder Bremen between 2003 and 2011. His record was W5 D3 L8. 

• Oliver Giroud scored France's opening goal in their 2-1 friendly win against Germany in Bremen on 29 February 2012. The home team included Hummels and Reus, with Schmelzer on the bench.

• Szczęsny played for Poland in a 2-2 draw – Błaszczykowski and Lewandowski scoring the goals – with Schmelzer's Germany in a September 2011 friendly in Gdansk. Hummels was on the German bench.