Stuttgart vs. Borussia Dortmund: Team News, Preview, Live Stream, TV Info

VfB Stuttgart host Borussia Dortmund in the quarter-finals of the 2015/16 DFB-Pokal on Tuesday evening.

The Swabians are the in-form team in German football, unbeaten in seven matches across competitions and winners of their last five, including all three games of the new calendar year. Head coach Jurgen Kramny has lost only once since taking over from Alexander Zorniger after Matchday 13 in the Bundesliga, coincidentally against Dortmund on November 29.

Stuttgart were 16th with only 10 points when he replaced Zorniger, whose aggressive full-court pressing generated exciting games but not enough results, and Tuesday's hosts have climbed to 12th after the weekend's set of matches, with a 10-point advantage over the first direct-relegation spot.

The hosts have the chance to make their first semi-final appearance since the 2012/13 season, when they lost in the cup final against Bayern Munich.

Dortmund, on the other hand, are looking to reach the semis for the third straight year, which would extend their club record, per Transfermarkt.co.uk. The last time Dortmund fell to a team other than Bayern before a DFB-Pokal final came in October 2010.

Tuesday's visitors won their first two matches of 2016, but were held goalless at Hertha BSC at the weekend. The Black and Yellows made light work of VfB in the Bundesliga meeting between the clubs, beating the Swabians 4-1 in Signal Iduna Park.

It will be the first meeting between the two sides in the cup since 1998. The all-time series in the DFB-Pokal is tied at two wins for both teams, with the home side winning each of the four cup clashes.

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Date: Tuesday, February 9

Time: 7:30 p.m. GMT/2:30 a.m. ET/8:30 p.m. local time

Venue: Mercedes Benz Arena, Stuttgart

TV Info: BT Sport Europe (U.K. only)/ESPN3 (U.S. only)

Live Stream: BT Sport live streaming (UK only)/WATCH ESPN (U.S. only)

Form Guide

Stuttgart	Dortmund
Braunschweig: Win (3-2)	Augsburg: Win (2-0)
Wolfsburg: Win (3-1)	Cologne: Loss (2-1)
Cologne: Win (3-1)	Gladbach: Win (3-1)
Hamburg: Win (2-1)	Ingolstadt: Win (2-0)
Frankfurt: Win (4-2)	Hertha: Draw (0-0)

Lineups

Stuttgart

Predicted starting XI: Mitch Langerak; Kevin Grosskreutz, Toni Sunjic, Georg Niedermeier, Emiliano Insua; Christian Gentner, Lukas Rupp; Florian Klein, Daniel Didavi, Filip Kostic; Artem Kravets

German magazine Kicker reported in their Monday issue that former Dortmund goalkeeper Mitch Langerak will make his debut for Stuttgart after moving to Swabia in the summer. The 27-year-old Australian missed the entire first half of the season with muscle and knee injuries.

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Kramny is likely to rotate his squad a bit, seeing as the same XI played all three games of 2016. Winter arrival Artem Kravets could get the start over Timo Werner as the lone striker, while Florian Klein could play on the right side of midfield with Lukas Rupp moving into a more central role in place of Serey Die.

Dortmund

Predicted starting XI: Roman Burki; Lukasz Piszczek, Sokratis, Mats Hummels, Marcel Schmelzer; Ilkay Gundogan, Julian Weigl, Gonzalo Castro; Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Marco Reus

Head coach Thomas Tuchel could field the same lineup that drew in the capital at the weekend. The big question is whether Japan international Shinji Kagawa will get to play after not being selected for the 18- man squad for the Hertha game.

If Tuchel decides to rotate his squad with the UEFA Europa League round-of-32 tie against FC Porto in mind, Matthias Ginter and Erik Durm seem like the best bets. Full-backs Lukasz Piszczek and Marcel Schmelzer could get rested, or Ginter could play instead of Julian Weigl in defensive midfield.

Players to Watch

Tuesday will mark the first time Kevin Grosskreutz plays against his boyhood club. The 2014 FIFA World Cup winner left Dortmund in the summer after six highly successful years and will be dying to prove Tuchel, who had little use for the ultra-versatile 27-year-old, wrong.

Grosskreutz will need to keep his emotions in check, however. He regularly had some of his worst performances in a yellow shirt in derbies against local rivals FC Schalke, and Tuesday could come close in terms of an emotional charge.

As for the visitors, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang played probably his worst game in over a year at Berlin, failing to take a single shot while only making 11 touches in 71 minutes on the pitch, per WhoScored.com.

The Gabonese bagged a brace against Stuttgart in the league, with his first a true contender for goal of the season so far.

However, Africa's footballer of the year hasn't scored away from home since November 20, as football writer Stephan Uersfeld noted on Twitter (link in German).

Key Battles

Filip Kostic vs. Lukasz Piszczek

When in form, 23-year-old winger Filip Kostic terrorises full-backs with an impressive blend of speed, power and technique. The Serbian is very much in form, as Deutsche Welle's Ross Dunbar noted at the weekend:

Almost exclusively playing on the left, Kostic will give Piszczek (or Ginter or Durm) all he can handle. Running directly at the full-back, going past him with quickness, dangerous crosses—Stuttgart's No. 18 can do it all on his day.

Dortmund's right-back will likely be occupied defensively, but Stuttgart's left side can be had, so Pizszcek needs to make those runs along the sideline, even if it exposes his team-mates defence a bit.

Dortmund's Defence vs. Stuttgart's Counter-Attacks

The Black and Yellows' susceptibility to counter-attacks has been well-documented this season. Hertha could've kept all three points in the Olympiastadion at the weekend had they been a bit more clinical in two counter-attacking situations late in the game.

Counters are a big strength of Stuttgart's, as tactics portal Toorschuss.de pointed out after VfB's win over Cologne (link in German), where they scored two goals from counter-attacks. The speed of Kostic and Daniel Didavi is a real threat to Dortmund's defence in those situations.

The Black and Yellows need to keep the ball better than they did against Hertha and Ingolstadt, because the way the Swabians are playing right now, they'll make them pay dearly.

Odds (via Oddschecker)

Stuttgart: 11-2

Draw: 19-5

Dortmund: 11-20

Lars Pollmann is a Featured Columnist writing on Borussia Dortmund. He also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.