Borussia Dortmund travels to Wembley Stadium in London to test its mettle against 14-time European winners Real Madrid in the Champions League final on Sunday night (12;30 am IST).
The Spanish giant will be looking to add to its Champions League trophy cabinet and make it 15, while Dortmund will be looking to stop Carlo Ancelotti’s team.
BVB is one of the most famous clubs in Germany and has a rich history in European competitions. It won the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1965-66 by defeating Liverpool 2-1 in the final.
Apart from that glory, Dortmund has also lifted the coveted UEFA Champions League trophy in 1996-97 season, a year after UEFA Cup was rebranded to Champions League.
It is BVB’s only title in the tournament to date, and the first title for Germany since its reunification in 1990. It remained
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Dortmund’s victorious UEFA Champions League 1996-97 campaign
Ottmar Hitzfeld’s Dortmund qualified to the knock-out stage after finishing second in Group B behind Atletico Madrid.
BVB beat Auxerre and Manchester United in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively to set up a memorable showpiece with Italian giants Juventus, the side that thrashed them 6-1 on aggregate in the UEFA Cup final just four years earlier.
Thirty-three years after progressing to its first-ever European Cup semifinal, Dortmund made it all the way to its first-ever Champions League final in the 1996-97 campaign. The final was held on German soil at the Olympiastadion in Munich.
A first-half brace from Karl-Heinz Riedle as well as a second-half strike from substitute Lars Ricken helped Dortmund win 3-1, becoming the first German team to win the competition since the country’s reunification in 1990.