Dortmund vs Lazio: UEFA Champions League background, form guide, previous meetings

Group F leaders Borussia Dortmund welcome to Germany a Lazio side who beat them on Matchday 1, with both sides well placed to reach the round of 16.

• The Italian club were 3-1 winners in Rome in the opening round of Group F fixtures, Ciro Immobile (6) opening the scoring against his former club before an own goal from Dortmund keeper Marwin Hitz (23) put them in control. Jean-Daniel Akpa-Akpro (76) wrapped up the points after Erling Braut Haaland's 71st-minute strike had briefly revived Dortmund's hopes.

• BVB have won all three games since, however, keeping three clean sheets, and lead the standings on nine points, one more than Lazio with Club Brugge on four and eliminated Zenit on one. The victors in Dortmund will be guaranteed a place in the round of 16, though a draw will take both clubs through if Club Brugge fail to win at home to Zenit in the group's other Matchday 5 fixture.

Previous meetings
• The sides' paths had crossed only once before 2020/21, Dortmund running out 2-1 aggregate winners in the 1994/95 UEFA Cup quarter-finals. Dortmund players scored all three goals in the tie, Steffen Freund putting through his own net in Rome to give Lazio a first-leg win before a Stéphane Chapuisat penalty and ex-Lazio striker Karl-Heinz Riedle's 90th-minute winner in Germany took BVB through.

Form guide
Dortmund
• The German club responded to their opening loss at Lazio by beating Zenit 2-0 at home before defeating Club Brugge 3-0 both in Belgium and in Germany, Haaland scoring twice in both games.

• Second in the Bundesliga behind Bayern München for the second season running in 2019/20, this is Dortmund's 15th UEFA Champions League campaign; they were winners in 1997, and runners-up in 2013. BVB have reached the round of 16 in six of their last seven participations.

• Lucien Favre's side finished second behind Barcelona in their section last season, picking up ten points – seven of them at home – to finish ahead of Internazionale and Slavia Praha.

• Dortmund were 2-1 winners at home to Paris Saint-Germain in the round of 16 first leg, but bowed out after going down 2-0 in the return in France.

• BVB have won seven of their last 11 European matches (L4), all four defeats coming away from home.

• Haaland, who has found the net in all four Group F games to date, has scored in nine of his ten group stage appearances, 14 goals in all.

• Despite victories in their last five home matches, Dortmund have won only eight of their last 16 European games in their own stadium (D3 L5).

• Dortmund have lost seven of their 17 home matches against Italian clubs (W7 D3), including three of the last six. They came from two goals down to beat Internazionale 3-2 on Matchday 4 last season.

• Their one UEFA Champions League triumph came at the expense of Italian opposition in the 1997 final when they beat Juventus 3-1 in Munich.

Lazio
• Having opened their campaign with the win against Dortmund, Lazio subsquently drew 1-1 at both Club Brugge and Zenit before beating the Russian club 3-1 in Rome last time out.

• This is Lazio's sixth UEFA Champions League campaign. On their most recent appearance, in 2007/08, they finished fourth in their section having picked up only five points from six games. Their previous appearances in the competition all came between 1999 and 2004.

• Lazio's record in the initial group stage is now W14 D9 L11.

• Despite this season's wins against Dortmund and Zenit, Lazio have won only three of their last 15 UEFA Champions League matches, group stage to final (D6 L6).

• Before their first Group F game, Lazio's sole UEFA Champions League tie since 2007 had been a play-off defeat by Bayer Leverkusen in 2015/16 (1-0 h, 0-3 a).

• The Rome club's most successful European Cup campaign came in 1999/2000, when they reached the quarter-finals before losing to Valencia (2-5 a, 1-0 h).

• The Biancocelesti took part in the UEFA Europa League group stage in 2019/20, winning two of their fixtures but losing the other four including all three away games, to finish third in the standings behind Celtic and CFR Cluj.

• Simone Inzaghi's side – who qualified for the group stage by finishing fourth in Serie A in 2019/20 – have lost eight of their last 14 European matches (W4 D2).

• Matchday 2 marked Lazio's first draw in 19 European games, since they were held 2-2 by Dynamo Kyiv in Rome in the UEFA Europa League round of 16 first leg in March 2018.

• The Matchday 1 win against Dortmund ended Lazio's three-match losing run against Bundesliga opponents, home and away.

• Lazio have seven wins in 15 games against Bundesliga clubs (D3 L5), but only one in Germany – 2-0 at Stuttgart in the 2012/13 UEFA Europa League round of 16. They have lost their last two away matches against Bundesliga clubs, most recently going down 4-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt in the 2018/19 UEFA Europa League group stage.

Links and trivia
• Immobile played for Dortmund in 2014/15, scoring just three goals in 24 Bundesliga games but four in six UEFA Champions League appearances.

• Lazio's Pepe Reina made three appearances in Bayern's Bundesliga-winning campaign in 2014/15.

• Lazio sporting director Igli Tare played in Germany for seven seasons, representing Mannheim (1994/95), Südwest Ludwigshafen (1995/96), Karlsruhe (1996/97), Fortuna Düsseldorf (1997–99) and Kaiserslautern (1999–2001).

• Dortmund's Emre Can played in Italy for Juventus between 2018 and 2020, scoring four goals in 45 games.

• Have played together:
Roman Bürki & Senad Lulić (Young Boys 2010/11)
Emre Can & Lucas Leiva (Liverpool 2014–17)

• Both Mats Hummels and Marco Parolo scored their penalties as Germany defeated Italy in a shoot-out in the UEFA EURO 2016 quarter-finals.

• Jadon Sancho scored twice in England's 5-3 UEFA EURO 2020 qualifying win against Kosovo on 10 September 2019, Vedat Muriqi getting one of the visitors' goals.

Latest news

Dortmund
• Jude Bellingham became the youngest Englishman to play in the UEFA Champions League on Matchday 1, aged 17 years 113 days.

• Bellingham scored on his BVB debut in Duisburg, becoming the club's youngest ever scorer aged 17 years 77 days.

• On 30 September BVB lost 3-2 in the German Super Cup at Bayern München.

• Dortmund's record in this season's Bundesliga is W6 L3. They went down 2-1 at home to Köln on Saturday, their fourth defeat in their last seven league matches at their own stadium.

• Erling Braut Haaland scored four goals in a 5-2 win at Hertha Berlin on 21 November, and now has 23 in 23 Bundesliga appearances for Dortmund.

• Haaland was the leading scorer in the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League after Matchday 4 with six goals.

• Youssoufa Moukoko came on as a late substitute for Haaland at Hertha; aged 16 years 1 day, he is the youngest player ever to appear in the Bundesliga.

• Bellingham, who had become England's youngest Under-21 debutant and scorer in a 6-0 win in Kosovo in UEFA European Championship qualifying on 4 September aged 17 years 67 days, made his senior England debut as a substitute in a 3-0 friendly win against the Republic of Ireland on 12 November. Aged 17 years 136 days, he is the third youngest player to represent England after Theo Walcott and Wayne Rooney.

• Jadon Sancho scored for England against Ireland.

• Giovanni Reyna made his USA debut in a goalless friendly draw in Wales on 12 November. Four days later he scored his first goal in a 6-2 friendly win against Panama in Austria.

• Thomas Delaney won his 50th cap for Denmark in their 4-2 defeat by Belgium in the UEFA Nations League on 18 November.

• Reinier scored for Brazil's Under-23 side in a 3-1 win against South Korea's U23s on 14 November in Egypt but has missed Dortmund's last two games because of illness.

• Dan-Axel Zagadou has been sidelined since August by a knee injury, but he returned to team training during the recent international break.

• Raphaël Guerreiro sat out Dortmund's weekend defeat due to a minor hamstring problem.

• On 20 November Dortmund announced that Reyna had extended his contract until 2025.

Lazio
• Lazio's eight-match unbeaten run in all competitions (W5 D3) was ended by Sunday's 3-1 home defeat against Udinese in Serie A.

• Ciro Immobile scored his 108th Serie A goal for Lazio at the weekend, taking him into outright second place in the club's all-time rankings, behind only Silvio Piola (143 goals). Immobile had moved alongside Giuseppe Signori with a goal in a 2-0 win at Crotone on 21 November.

• Immobile has found the net in Lazio's last six matches, scoring seven goals in total.

• Joaquín Correa, who scored nine Serie A goals in 2019/20, opened his account for the current campaign with the second at Crotone.

• After scoring an added-time winner against Torino on 1 November (4-3) and the late equaliser at Zenit on Matchday 3, Felipe Caceido struck in added time again to earn a 1-1 draw against Juventus on 8 November.

• Lazio have only failed to score once this season, a 3-0 defeat at Sampdoria on 17 October.

• The Biancocelesti, however, have only kept two clean sheets this season, including only one in their last 12 games in all competitions, at Crotone.

• Goalkeeper Thomas Strakosha returned on Sunday having missed four Lazio games and international duty with Albania due to illness.

• Sergej Milinković-Savić played in Serbia's UEFA EURO 2020 play-off defeat by Scotland on 12 November and was a late substitute in the 1-1 UEFA Nations League draw in Hungary three days later but has not played since due to illness, although he was an unused substitute against Udinese on Sunday.

• A thigh injury has kept Gonzalo Escalante on the sidelines since 24 October, although he was on the bench at the weekend.

• Vedat Muriqi suffered a thigh injury at Zenit and sat out the Udinese defeat.

• Francesco Acerbi played 90 minutes in each fixture as Italy beat Poland and Bosnia and Herzegovina, both 2-0, in the UEFA Nations League in November.

• Muriqi scored in Kosovo's 2-1 friendly defeat against Albania on 11 November, and in the 2-1 defeat against Slovakia in the UEFA Nations League four days later, taking his tally to ten international goals and thus becoming the first player from his country to reach double figures.

• Immobile signed a new contract until 2025 on 31 August.