Bayern Munich vs Borussia Dortmund: when was the last time Bavarian giants didn’t win the Bundesliga?

The Bundesliga returns after the international break with a bang on Saturday 1 April, with league leaders Borussia Dortmund travelling to Bavaria to take on title rivals Bayern Munich, who will have new boss Thomas Tuchel, formerly in charge at Signal Iduna Park, in the dugout for the very first time following the departure of Julian Nagelsmann.

If may feel strange for followers of the German top flight to see the words ‘league leaders’ before the name of a team other than Bayern, such had been their dominance of the division in recent seasons. An away victory for Dortmund at the Allianz Arena would go a long way towards marking the end of an era and must surely be what everybody, Bayern fans apart, are craving.

We shouldn’t forget, either, that surprise packages Union Berlin, Freiburg and RB Leipzig are lurking in the background ‘only’ five, seven and eight points behind Dortmund respectively, hoping that the top two both somehow collapse and present them with a shock league title on a silver platter.

Dortmund overtook Bayern before the break

Edin Terzic’s men have been on a superb run since the run of the year, winning 10 games in a row in all competitions until a Champions League defeat to Chelsea, which eliminated them from Europe. Despite Nagelsmann’s sacking, the Bavarians have been in relatively fine form themselves, coming out on top in eight of their last 10 matches. But the other two ended in costly defeats, with the loss at Bayer Leverkusen before the break seeing them surrender their lead at the top of the standings.

How many league titles in a row have Bayern won? How many do they have in total?

Bayern have incredibly won the last 10 Bundesliga titles in a row, which has seen them move onto 31 in total. That means they are a whopping 26 (yes, twenty-six) ahead of two teams who are in joint-second place on the list with five: Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Dortmund were, of course, the last club other than Bayern to win the league in Germany, with the back-to-back titles claimed between 2010 and 2012 going a long way to putting Jürgen Klopp on the map as an elite-level coach.

Recent meetings between Bayern and Dortmund in Munich

Unfortunately for anyone who really wants to see a new name on the Bundesliga trophy, we’ve been in this position before and there was a rather inevitable ending. At almost the exactly same stage of the 2018-19 season, Dortmund travelled to Munich with a two-point lead in the standings, only to suffer a 5-0 thrashing, which saw them knocked off top spot. They would never regain it.

Recent history will do little to breed any form of confidence for Dortmund, who have been beaten on each of their last six visits to the Allianz Arena. Their run of league defeats in Bavaria stands at eight in a row, while, in addition to that 5-0 hammering, they have also lost 4-1, 4-0, 5-1 and 6-0 in Munich since their last victory there in 2016.

Nothing lasts forever, though, as they say. Can they catch new Bayern boss Tuchel cold in his first match in charge and reclaim a trophy they’ve been waiting 11 long years to get their hands on?