🇩🇪 Dortmund host Bayern but will it be another anti-climax? | OneFootball

Robert Lewandowski’s Ballon d’Or snub was met with shock and horror in Germany at the start of the week.

Ultimately, people don’t rate his Bundesliga achievements highly enough. People don’t rate the league highly enough to take them as seriously as Lionel Messi’s exploits with Barcelona (though he has, of course, since joined PSG) and in the Copa América.

The cruel irony, at least for the Pole, is that a week that ended with missing out on Ballon d’Or ends with the one Bundesliga match-up that will draw a huge worldwide audience.

Bayern Munich head to Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, hoping to remain top of the Bundesliga table as they hunt a tenth successive Bundesliga title. Yes, ten.

And that might just be Lewandowski’s problem: Bayern win so consistently, that people don’t take their wins seriously enough.

Just like that, we’re back at the same point we find ourselves at least once every Bundesliga season: can things be different this time around?

With just 15,000 fans allowed to attend, Dortmund will feel they have lost home advantage in this fixture for a third consecutive season. The Black and Yellows usually have a good record against Bayern at home but that has fallen by the wayside as the Bavarians have become accustomed to visiting with few, if any, fans allowed into the Westfalenstadion.

Dortmund’s performances this season haven’t always been convincing but their home ground remains a fortress: they’ve made their best ever home start to a season in 2021/22, winning all seven of their games in front of the Yellow Wall, no matter how full it has been.

But not everything is fine under new boss Marco Rose. Injuries have hit, most notably to Erling Haaland of late, and the team have kept just one clean sheet in their 13 league outings to date.

Bayern, who enter this one without midfield stalwart Joshua Kimmich, have looked vulnerable of late themselves. Defeat to Augsburg was only followed up by a narrow win over Arminia Bielefeld last weekend.

But they have a habit to turning up for this fixture.

Do just that and they can extend their one-point advantage over Dortmund and take a huge step towards number 10.