PSG ready to defend top spot at Dortmund
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Article summary
Yet to lose at home against a French side, Borussia Dortmund will try to join visitors Paris Saint-Germain FC on six points when the Group J leaders come calling in the UEFA Europa League.
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Yet to lose at home against a French side, Borussia Dortmund will attempt to join visitors Paris Saint-Germain FC on six points when the Group J leaders come calling in the UEFA Europa League.
Previous meetings
• The sides are meeting for the first time in UEFA club competition.
• Dortmund's ten previous games against French opponents ended W4 D3 L3 (W3 D2 L0 at home).
• PSG's nine meetings with German opponents ended W6 D0 L3 (W2 D0 L3 in Germany).
Match background
• Dortmund have won only one of their last six European home games, beating Azerbaijan's FK Qarabağ in this season's UEFA Europa League play-offs.
• PSG won both of their opening Group J games without conceding a goal. Starting with a 3-1 win at VfL Wolfsburg in the 2008/09 UEFA Cup round of 32, they have won three of their last five European away fixtures.
Team facts
• Dortmund coach Jürgen Klopp started his career as a striker, converting to a defender midway through an 11-year playing spell at 1. FSV Mainz 05. Moving from the pitch to the bench in 2001, he led Mainz to the top division in Germany – and into European competition – for the first time, but stepped down at the end of the 2007/08 campaign to replace Thomas Doll as Dortmund coach.
• Antoine Kombouaré was hired as PSG coach in May 2009, finishing his first full season by leading his charges to success in the 2009/10 French Cup. Initially a defender for FC Nantes, the New Caledonian-born player represented PSG from 1990 to 1995, winning a league title, two French Cups and a League Cup before moving on to FC Sion and later Aberdeen FC. PSG's reserve coach for a while, he took the reins at RC Strasbourg and then Valenciennes FC before returning to his old club.
• Dortmund's French striker Damien Le Tallec – the younger brother of AJ Auxerre forward Anthony Le Tallec – was a trainee at AC Le Havre and Stade Rennais FC, but moved to Germany in summer 2009.