Bayern Munich has accomplished the incredible feat of winning the Bundesliga for ten straight years, an unheard of streak across Europe’s top five leagues that makes the Bavarian side look invincible.
Looking back on the last ten seasons, Bayern led the league on their own at the time of the current match day (24) for 9 of the 10 years considered. They were only second at this stage of the competition in a tie at 54 points with Borussia Dortmund during the 2018-2019 title race. On top of that, in seven of those years, the difference between them and second place was larger than 3 points, a stat that reflects Bayern’s overwhelming dominance.
The truth is that this season, the club has faced tough rivals in the race for the title, which could result in the loss of their seemingly untouchable throne. Three foes stand above the rest in the current rivalry for title contention against the current champions: Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Union Berlin.
Borussia Dortmund:
Tied with Bayern, they are the second ranked team in the league. Dortmund is probably the squad who hold the biggest chance of ending the reign of the Munich-based team, a young collection of players with top-tier talent and potential who can face off against any opponent, as they proved in their 2-1 win over Leipzig.
Aside from this, they were knocked out of the Champions League by Chelsea, which will certainly have a positive impact in their roster’s fatigue for the rest of the season enabling them to focus on the remaining league matches. Other arguments in favor of BVB are: the return of Marco Reus, the captain and leader of the team; Emre Can’s fantastic current form and Jude Bellingham’s flair, who at the age of 19 is already one of the most exciting prospects in European football.
Unfortunately for the squad coached by Edin Terzic, a few of their key players happen to be injured. These are the cases of Karim Adeyemi, who was in a great state of form; Julian Brandt and Gregor Kobel, who fell injured in the match against Chelsea and has been one of the best keepers in the Bundesliga.
RB Leipzig:
The Die Rotten Bullen currently hold the 4th position on the table with 42 points after their previously mentioned defeat handed by Dortmund. Similar to BVB, they have a young and exciting roster that displays great combinative football and always tries to keep possession of the ball with the lights of Konrad Laimer, Dani Olmo and Kevin Kampl.
Leipzig has some other great players: Dominik Szoboszlai, who possesses a great right foot and has recorded eight assists so far this season (the second most in the league), and Cristopher Nkunku, who has scored twelve goals in eighteen matches and is the undisputed star of the team, but has missed a lot of matches after getting injured right before the World Cup. Josko Gvardiol is another name to keep in mind after his mind-blowing performances with Croatia in Qatar.
Relative to Dortmund, Marco Rose’s squad has an inferior chance to clinch the league title since their underwhelming start under Domenico Tedesco (current Belgium manager) has put them seven points behind the leaders, perhaps too big of a gap to make up in the remainder of the year.
Union Berlin:
Berlin might have the worse roster out of the three ‘candidates’ to dethrone Bayern, but their consistency has allowed them to sustain third place just five points behind the top of the table, a tremendous achievement.
Despite their 3-0 loss against Bayern on the 22nd date of the competition, Urs Fischer’s squad is still very much in contention for the title and, most importantly, really close to qualifying for next year’s Champions League.
In contrast to the rest of the teams featured in the article, they are a very defensive-minded team and less creative on the offensive side of the pitch. After Bayern, they have conceded the least goals in the league but, unfortunately, they have also scored the least out of the top four.
It is the case of a smooth-running machine, a very well-developed team tactically. Despite that, it is fairly reasonable for their performance to have taken a hit as their pool of players is also the least talented out of those in contention. A good reflection of this is the great run of Frederik Ronnow, their goalkeeper and one of the stars of the team who has conceded the fourth least goals in the Bundesliga.
It is possible that, 10 years later, the Bavarian lose their throne and everything leads to believe that, in the case that happened, the heir to the championship would be Borussia Dortmund, who made really significant signings last summer and, despite the probable departure of Jude Bellingham, have a really promising project on their hands.
Translated by Nuño Alonso.
Main image: @FCBayernES.
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