**The tie is level; Dortmund have no room to drift**

0-0 is both the score after the first leg and the full measure of what remains between Borussia Dortmund and Ponferrada. On Tuesday, in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League semi-final, one will reach the final and the other will have no further say in this season’s competition.

The German side’s domestic week has offered a different kind of steadiness: they are second in the Bundesliga, with 61 points from 32 games and a run of three wins after two draws.

Ponferrada are eighth in the Spanish First Division, with 47 points from 35 matches, and have won 11, drawn 14 and lost 10. Their earlier meeting in this competition, on 23 January, ended in a 1-0 Dortmund victory; the more recent draw has left that result as the only goal between them across their two meetings this season.

The visitors will be without Federico Rocchi and Fran Belmonte, both injured. Jofre Salvador, a regular centre-back, is fit but is not expected to start.

For Ponferrada, the task is not to chase a deficit but to carry the discipline of that first meeting into a night that will settle everything. The final is one game away for both; the way there is still open.