Legia Warsaw vs Borussia Dortmund Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Legia Warsaw haven’t had the best of starts to the new campaign after winning the Polish Ekstraklasa last season, but the fact that they have made it to the Champions League group stages is a massive deal. This is the first time they have reached this stage of Europe’s elite competition since 1995/96 season, so they’ll be looking to make the most of it.

It certainly won’t be easy for the Polish side though, with Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund the overwhelming favourites to qualify for the knockout stages and Sporting CP providing a tough test in the race for 3rd place and a Europa League knockout stage appearance.

As mentioned previously, they aren’t in the best of form either. They began the campaign with a 4-1 defeat to Lech Poznan in the Polish Super Cup, and since then they have won five, drawn six, and lost four of their 15 competitive games. This puts them out of the Polish Cup and down in 11th position in the league table, with their only saving grace being the Champions League qualification.

Borussia Dortmund began their season with their own Super Cup defeat as Bayern Munich won 2-0 to claim the first silverware of the season. They managed to bounce back with a win against Eintracht Trier in the DFB Pokal and a 2-1 win over Mainz in the Bundesliga opener, but they suffered a setback at the weekend. They traveled to Leipzig and came away on the end of a 1-0 defeat.

It hasn’t been the same blistering start to the season from Borussia Dortmund this year. Last season we saw them put Bayern Munich to the test, as they kept pace with them for the majority of the season, only falling away in the latter stages. This year it looks like they’re already defeated after just two games.

The loss of Bundesliga Players’ Player of the Year Henrikh Mkhitaryan will have hit them hard, as will Mats Hummels leaving for Bayern Munich and Ikay Gundogan moving on as well. However, the acquisition of Mario Gotze, Ousmane Dembele, Sebastian Rode, Raphael Guerreiro, and Andre Schurrle should have more than plugged the gap. It’s likely that the new players are just taking a while to settle in, and the injuries of Marco Reus and Shinji Kagawa are unlikely to be helping their form either.

Borussia Dortmund have a huge advantage in terms of quality compared to Legia Warsaw and, considering the hosts’ current form, I’m not giving them much of a chance here. The Polish champions could only manage a draw against Irish minnows Dundalk at home in the last round and also struggled at home to Trencin before that, so a Borussia Dortmund -1.5 Asian Handicap Win at 2.100 looks a good backing to me. I’m going for a 3-0 correct score prediction at 8/1 as well.