Borussia Dortmund – Bayern Munich: Bundesliga Title Race Settled? (2-3)

Borussia Dortmund showed early promise with their astute defensive performance and set-piece proficiency. Bayern Munich struggled to generate valuable chances in the first half, but that changed in the second. With Dortmund looking more fatigued, the visitors found opportunities and capitalized on them. Bayern still leaked a goal towards the end of the game but managed to crawl back and score another goal that secured all three points and maybe even the Bundesliga title.

Tactical analysis and match report by Fahd Ahmed.

There were murmurs of a potential title race after Borussia Dortmund’s unbeaten league streak. A 2-2 draw against RB Leipzig last weekend put a slight dent in their hopes. However, a top-of-the-table clash against Bayern Munich the following weekend provided Niko Kovač’s side with a golden opportunity to take a considerable step forward in closing the points gap.

Bayern’s form across all competitions this season has ranked them amongst the best teams in Europe. Thus, due to the high standards set, even the slightest stumble was bound to make headlines. That proved to be the case a few weeks ago as Bayern narrowly lost to Augsburg before a frustrating 2-2 draw against Hamburg. They shook off those results with four wins on the bounce ahead of the crucial tie against Dortmund.

With a tiring and disappointing mid-week defeat to Atalanta in the Champions League, Kovač understandably made quite a few changes. In defense, Yan Couto and Nico Schlotterbeck featured instead of the suspended Julian Ryerson and Ramy Bensebaini. The . . .