After traveling to the North Pole, Germany’s capital, and Asia in a three-match away stint, Borussia Dortmund finally return home to the Westfalenstadion. This marks the start of a decisive month in Dortmund’s season. Across the next 30 days, Dortmund will play seven games including tomorrow’s match against Frankfurt, Tuesday’s Pokal match against Bremen, Halloween’s Der Klassiker and two high-profile UCL matches against Betis and Arsenal. If there’s ever been a time to start gaining momentum, tomorrows would be it!

Frankfurt are a fascinating opponent. These sides played each other three times last season with 13 goals and a penalty shootout. January’s 3-3 draw was probably the match of the season (and likely featured Mahmoud Dahoud’s last Bundesliga goal). Apart from entertaining games, Frankfurt represent inconsistency. Die Adler have reached great heights in the past decade including 2023’s DFB Pokal final and 2022’s Europa League triumph. They’ve also oscillated to some pretty deep lows. Unfortunately for Frankfurt, it looks like they’re doing the latter this season.

Adi Hütter’s men currently sit in 11th place with the third worst goal difference in the league. They’re yet to string two wins back to back and were humbled by both Augsburg (4-1 loss) and Leipzig (6-0 loss - ouch). That scoreline in Frankfurt’s loss to Leipzig is an outlier, however. Frankfurt found themselves 2-0 down within the first five minutes, opened themselves up to chase the game, and were decimated. We should expect to see a similar performance to last weekend’s 1-0 win over Koln. Frankfurt will play through the wide areas, target Dortmund’s right side, win the ball quickly, and play vertical.

Dortmund will have to win the intensity battle. Unlike Sabah and Union Berlin, Frankfurt will press high and often. Teams like Augsburg and Leipzig have exposed Frankfurt’s high line when they played through the press quickly. Expect a very different match to Dortmund’s past two and let’s hope Dortmund’s away matches haven’t sapped their energy.

AFP via Getty Images

AFP via Getty Images

Frankfurt may be the most inconsistent team on the planet but they always have one consistency: they seem to always have one attacker who is extremely talented. In 2020 it was Andre Silva, 2022 was Kolo Muani, 2023 was Omar Marmoush, 2024 Hugo Ekitike, 2025 was Can Uzun, and now 2026 brings us Younes Ebnoutalib. Ebnoutalib joined Frankfurt last winter as Elversberg’s record sale (Ole Book has his fingerprints on this one!) but injury limited his minutes. This season, the 23-year-old striker has stepped up big for struggling Frankfurt. In just four starts and 416 minutes, Ebnoutalib has five goals and one assist. He’s only failed to find the net in one of his starts when he notched an assist in Frankfurt’s 4-1 loss to Augsburg on Matchday Two.

Ebnoutalib is a tall attacker who likes to press and, more importantly, score goals. He has great movement inside the box and often takes shots from acute angles towards the near post. Expect to see his strike partner, Jonathan Burkardt, perform the thankless holdup play, run the channels, and try to get his head on the ball while Ebnoutalib acts as a fox in the box.

Oh - did I forget to mention his debut goal was against Borussia Dortmund in last season’s 3-3 match?

After Dortmund’s Champions League match against Sabah FK, I wrote about the difficulty Niko Kovač has in picking Dortmund’s attacking trio. He’s not the only one having trouble - I’ll hold my hands up and say I don’t know what this Dortmund lineup will look like tomorrow. I’ve opted for a 3-4-1-2 like we saw against Sabah with Silva and Guirassy up top. Both players look better when on the field together and why break up what seems to be working? Behind them, I’m opting for Ethan Nwaneri for two reasons. The first is that it looks like Kovac rested him on Tuesday to prepare him for this game. The second is that Carney Chukwuemeka, who impressed against Sabah, has never completed a full 90-minute soccer game in his professional career and the last time he started two consecutive games for Dortmund was in March of 2025. Behind Nwaneri, I expect Nmecha and Jobe Bellingham to get the start. Veerman impressed against Sabah but Frankfurt’s line of confrontation is much higher and more suited to Jobe’s ability on the ball. I expect Svensson and Ryerson as the wing-backs with Schlotterbeck, Anton, and Gadou filling out the defense. Kobel in goal.

I’ve decided to will a fun scoreline into existence and have gone with a 5-2 result for Dortmund. As always, I like to predict the goalscorers: Guirassy with three, Silva with one, and a Nmecha strike from distance.