"We said this wasn't just an adventure and now we're excited"

When the groups were drawn, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Shakhtar Donetsk seemed to immediately be counted out. However, Real Madrid and Inter have been unable to beat them so far. So the duel between the Germans and the Ukrainians, which was originally meant to be fought for the play-off place in the Europa League, takes on a new dimension. 

That is why Jonas Hofmann's previous statements ahead of the away match against the surprise Group B leaders are understandable. A match in which 'Gladbach can emerge as the new group leader. 

"When the Champions League anthem is played, you get goose bumps. We said at the beginning that this wasn't just an adventure, that we wanted to play our part. And now we are excited and want to continue to achieve good results," said the German striker. 

"We can take a lot of good things from the first two matches in the Champions League, almost beating two top teams. We are not afraid of big names and we play courageous football, and the same goes for this match," Hofmann added. 

On his part, Marco Rose acknowledged that "We didn't expect our game against Shakhtar to be the first place team against the second", although he wanted to put in a good word what his team is doing: "We are very versatile tactically. The boys can play with a four or three in defence. The aim is to be aggressive without the ball against Shakhtar, but we will also need to play good football against them.