Borussia Dortmund’s visit to Arsenal on August 9 gives the German club a high-profile test late in its pre-season schedule. The friendly at Emirates Stadium kicks off at 3 p.m. CEST (2 p.m. local time), with Dortmund’s penultimate warm-up set against one of the strongest opponents it will face before the 2026/27 campaign. A pre-season result won’t settle much on its own, but the level of opposition should make the match a more revealing rehearsal than a routine tune-up.
The timing matters. Dortmund will have completed three earlier friendlies, including two in Japan, before travelling to London, and will have only one more warm-up afterward. That gives the coaching staff a chance to assess how the team handles a demanding opponent as preparation narrows toward competitive fixtures. It also leaves room to treat the game as a test of combinations and match fitness, rather than a final verdict on the squad.
The London match also brings midfielder Jobe Bellingham back to England. Dortmund will face former Bayer Leverkusen teammates Kai Havertz and Piero Hincapié, as well as former St. Pauli striker Viktor Gyökeres. Those connections give the fixture a personal edge, though the broader interest lies in seeing how Dortmund measures itself against a familiar standard of elite English opposition. Arsenal are the reigning English Premier League champions.
A rare meeting before the season begins
Dortmund and Arsenal last played in 2014, when the Gunners won 2-0 at home in the UEFA Champions League group stage. Across eight meetings, Arsenal have four wins and Dortmund three. The clubs have therefore met often enough to give the fixture some history, but the long gap since their last match means this friendly won’t simply replay a recent rivalry. Its value is more immediate: a chance to see two major European clubs meet in a different setting, with preparation rather than points at stake.
That distinction changes how the result should be read. Pre-season matches can offer useful evidence about tempo, organisation and how players respond to a stronger opponent, but they’re shaped by preparation needs and the demands of the calendar. A good performance would be encouraging for Dortmund; a poor one would raise questions worth watching, but wouldn’t by itself explain what the team will look like once the season begins.
Niko Kovač’s side opens its five-match preparation schedule against Rot-Weiß Oberhausen on July 18. Two games in Japan follow: Cerezo Osaka on July 29 and FC Tokyo on August 1. Arsenal is the fourth opponent, before Dortmund host Roma at Signal Iduna Park on August 15. The sequence moves from the opening fixture through an overseas tour to two prominent European tests, giving the club several different settings in which to build rhythm.
For a coach, that variety can be useful. Similar pre-season schedules are often intended to balance minutes, tactical work and the practical demands of travel, though the available information doesn’t reveal how Dortmund will divide those priorities. The Arsenal match should still provide a clearer indication of the squad’s progress than the early stages of the programme. And this is the part most people overlook: the match’s place in the schedule may matter as much as its opponent, because Dortmund will have had several weeks of preparation by then.
Supercup comes next
Dortmund’s first competitive fixture is the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup against Bayern Munich on August 22. The Bundesliga season begins the following weekend, leaving the Arsenal game as a useful measure of Dortmund’s readiness just two weeks before the campaign starts. That short runway makes the friendly more than a summer attraction: it sits close enough to the competitive calendar to expose areas that may still need attention.
This is more significant than it looks. A match against the reigning English champions can test whether Dortmund’s preparation is producing a coherent side under pressure, while the later Roma game offers another demanding opportunity before the Supercup. If you’re working in this space, the useful signals will be how Dortmund performs across the whole run-in, not whether it wins one friendly. The Arsenal result will be a snapshot, not a forecast.
There’s also a practical limit to what supporters can conclude. A pre-season line-up may not reflect the side that starts the Supercup, and the source gives no details about selections or fitness. So the question for Dortmund is whether the London test helps sharpen the team’s approach before Bayern arrive. A final rehearsal of sorts.