AC Milan will renew hostilities with Borussia Dortmund for the first time in over two decades tonight when they face them in the Champions League group stage.
Milan have played Dortmund six times in their history, with three of those resulting in wins, two being losses and one a draw, giving the Rossoneri a 50% win rate. The first meeting between the two sides came in the 1957-58 European Cup quarter-finals, and the most recent was in the 2002-03 UCL group stage.
You can read our pre-match preview here, while below are the best stats ahead of the game…
➤ This is the first meeting between Borussia Dortmund and Milan since the 2002-03 Champions League second group stage – the away side won both meetings 1-0 in that campaign, with Milan going on to lift the trophy.
➤ Milan have only ever lost two of their 14 Champions League matches against German sides (W7 D5), with those defeats coming at Hertha BSC in October 1999 (0-1) and at home to Borussia Dortmund in March 2003 (0-1).
➤ Borussia Dortmund lost 2-0 at Paris Saint-Germain on MD1 – only in 2017-18 (vs Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid) have they ever lost their first two games in a single UEFA
Champions League campaign.
➤ Milan had 25 shots (9 on target) in their goalless draw with Newcastle on MD1. It was the highest number of shots a team has had in a UEFA Champions League game without scoring since Barcelona against Lyon in February 2019 (also 25).
➤ Milan have kept a clean sheet in each of their last three UEFA Champions League group stage games. They last recorded more consecutive shutouts at this stage in the 2002-03 campaign, and in their first four second group stage matches en route to winning the trophy.
➤ Milan had the highest expected goals total of any side not to score on MD1 of this season’s UEFA Champions League (1.99). Indeed, only Man City (37) and Real Madrid (32) had more shots than Milan in the opening games (25).
➤ Across their last five UEFA Champions League campaigns between 2018-19 and 2022-23, Borussia Dortmund have only lost one home group stage match (P15 W9 D5), going down 3-1 to Ajax in November 2021.
➤ Only two teams – Galatasaray (16) and Young Boys (14) – saw their opponents force more high turnovers against them than Borussia Dortmund (13) on MD1 of this season’s UEFA Champions League, with Dortmund completing only 242 passes against PSG, their second-fewest in a group stage game on record (2011-12 onwards), ahead only of the 189 they completed versus Ajax in November 2021.
➤ If he features in this match, it will be Milan forward Christian Pulisic’s 50th appearance in the UEFA Champions League, more than twice as many as any other American player (Weston McKennie, 24).
➤ Rade Krunic created seven chances in Milan’s 0-0 draw with
Newcastle on MD1 – since we have the data available (2003-04), only Urby Emanuelson has created more in a single UEFA Champions League match for the Italian side (9 v Anderlecht in September 2012).
