Having struggled in the final warm-up games, Wolfsburg will have to show a serious improvement if they want to get something from their opening fixture.

Borussia Dortmund, on the other hand, plan to make amends for the Super Cup loss to Bayern Munich and show some wantaway players they have reason to stay at Signal-Iduna Park.

Wolfsburg have been on a downtrend over the last few years, but last season was particularly disappointing as the team narrowly managed to avoid the drop.

It goes without saying that the club chiefs want the team to show considerable improvement this term, which shouldn’t be too difficult.

Few more important players left the club this summer, including Ricardo Rodriguez, Luiz Gustavo and Jannes-Kilian Horn, but there were some notable arrivals as well.

Wolfsburg splashed out on Ignacio Camacho, John Brooks, Paul Verhaegh, William, Felix Uduokhai, Landy Dimata and Marvin Stefaniak, but it remains to be seen how they will fare this season.

The Wolves toiled against minnows Eintracht Norderstedt in the DFB Pokal, but summer recruit Ignacio Camacho eventually scored the winner.

The win came at a cost as John Brooks picked up and injury and he will now be replaced by Felix Uduokhai, whereas Paul Verhaegh is doubtful with a bout of flu. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Bruma, Vieirinha, Christian Trasch and Sebastian Jung are all out injured.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Casteels – Verhaegh, Knoche, Uduokhai, Gerhardt – Bazoer, Camacho – Blaszczykowski, Malli, Hinds – Gomez.

Borussia Dortmund’s preparations for the new season were marred by requests from wantaway players such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ousmane Dembele.

And while the former looks set to stay at Signal-Iduna Park, the latter is expected to join Barcelona in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the Millionaires recruited Mahmoud Dahoud, Maximilian Philipp, Dan Zagadou and Omer Toprak, while Sven Bender, Matthias Ginter and Pascal Stenzel left the club.

Borussia were somewhat unfortunate to lose to Bayern Munich in the Super Cup match, as they twice had the lead, but they recovered well to score four past Rielasingen-Arlen in DFB Pokal.

The Millionaires will have bigger fish to fry on Saturday afternoon, but they have been made 5/6 favourites to defeat Wolfsburg.

Mario Gotze is in contention after recovering from a back problem, but Durm, Guerreiro, Reus, Park, Schmelzer, Dembele, Rode and Weigl are all unavailable.

Probable starting line-up (4-3-3): Burki – Piszczek, Sokratis, Bartra, Zagadou – Castro, Sahin, Gotze – Pulisic, Aubameyang, Philipp.