Borussia Dortmund vs Bayern Munich
Signal Iduna Park forms the backdrop for the 134th edition of Der Klassiker as Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich go head-to-head in a top-four Bundesliga six-pointer.
Borussia Dortmund’s quest to end a decade-long title wait in the Bundesliga overcame another stern test last weekend as they hauled back a 2-0 deficit to claim a 3-3 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt en route to preserving their unbeaten top-flight start (W6, D3). Maintaining that run with a victory would see ‘Die Borussen’ leapfrog Bayern in the table, though they last won a Bundesliga H2H in November 2018. Since then, they’ve lost eight out of nine league encounters against Bayern, barring a 2-2 draw in this corresponding fixture last term. Edin Terzic’s side bounced back from a 2-0 down to avoid defeat in that clash, while they’ve gone unbeaten in all four top-flight games after conceding first this season, which bodes well for their bid to improve the overall H2H stakes.
However, the visitors hold a significant upper hand in this match-up (W66, D35, L32) and come into proceedings in a buoyant mood following an 8-0 demolition of Darmsdadt in the previous round. Despite losing Joshua Kimmich to an early red card and drawing a blank at halftime, Thomas Tuchel’s men have produced another 7+ goal margin win this season, inspired by Harry Kane’s second Bundesliga hat-trick. As one of only three unbeaten sides at Germany’s top table this term (W7, D2), the ‘Bavarians’ commence this round confident of at least maintaining a two-point distance of pacesetters Bayer Leverkusen after collecting 16 of the last 18 available points on the road (W5, D1) despite only keeping one clean sheet in that sequence.