Borussia Mönchengladbach – SC Paderborn 07

Recent form · Written before the match

After six matchdays, Gladbach are 18th with 0 points and a goal difference of 8-20. The club are coming off a defensively unstable start to the season, and Alexander Blessin was still working on automatisms and defensive stability on 14 October.

Paderborn are 16th with 5 points and a goal difference of 5-9. Their results published before the match are: 0-0 at Mainz on 29 August, 0-1 against Freiburg on 5 September, 0-3 at Dortmund on 12 September, 3-1 against Hoffenheim on 20 September, 0-2 against Stuttgart on 10 October, and 2-2 at Bremen on 17 October.

After Bremen, the club wanted to reduce their turnovers and improve their positioning in possession. The chances cannot be compared using a homogeneous and verifiable metric for both teams.

Head-to-head · Written before the match

No recent quantified and verifiable head-to-head encounter is retained. Older encounters would not constitute a strong prédictive signal anyway without continuity in the squads and coaching staffs.

Absences and returns

On October 22, Gladbach reported, among others, Kleindienst, Kühn, Itakura, Honorat, Leopold, Castrop, Leszczyński and Lidberg as unavailable or doubtful. Leszczyński was cautiously optimistic, while Itakura and Honorat were getting closer to returning to training.

For the Paderborn match on October 24, Gayret, Awortwie-Grant, Hoffmeier, Klaas and Batista Meier were announced absent; Tigges was being considered as a starter if his condition allowed it. The final status for Gladbach-Paderborn remains to be confirmed.

Context & news

Gladbach want to become more compact, aggressive going forward and more defensively stable; at home, this progress could allow them to dictate the pace and attack the spaces in Paderborn’s transitions. The opposite scenario is a home défense that remains vulnerable, especially if the absences concern the center-back pairing or midfield.

Paderborn emphasize constant availability in possession and work on their turnovers: clean build-up play and quick transitions can exploit Gladbach’s difficulties. This reading would, however, be weakened by hosting Hamburg on October 24 and then traveling to Stuttgart for the cup on October 28, with freshness and rotation unknown.

Lineups and squad

Match confirmed for Saturday 31 October 2026 at 15:30 local time, i.e. 14:30 UTC, at Borussia-Park in Mönchengladbach; Gladbach are indeed the home team. No official lineup, goalkeeper, or starter has been confirmed.

The probable lineup published for Paderborn-Hamburg, with Noll in goal and Tigges up front, does not automatically carry over to 31 October.