🇩🇪 For once the pressure is on Bayern when Dortmund come to town | OneFootball

2-1, 5-1, 4-1, 6-0, 5-0, 4-0.

Borussia Dortmund have lost each of their last six Bundesliga visits to the Allianz Arena. In the last five, they have conceded 24 goals.

The longest they’ve kept the score at 0-0 is 26 minutes. That was back in 2015. They’ve conceded the opener within the first 10 minutes on three occasions and they haven’t found the back of the net in any of their last three visits.

“It’s always lovely when Dortmund come to Munich,” Thomas Müller gleefully chimed after last season’s stroll to three points.

Back then, like in a number of previous seasons, the win was an enormous setback for Dortmund in the Bundesliga title race.

This time it wouldn’t be.

The game matters and the result matters for BVB, there’s no doubt about that, but only because they’re chasing a top-four spot. They are already 13 points adrift of Bayern in the league. This will not be a fatal blow in the title race, nor would it be a setback.

A challenge for this season’s title was ruled out long ago and anything on Saturday would be a bonus. It isn’t even their most important game in the next week, with Tuesday’s Champions League last 16 second leg against Sevilla looming.

It is Bayern, for once, who will have to live with the pressure in the Bundesliga’s biggest encounter.

That pressure is something Bayern usually enjoy, it concentrates them, and this fixture has brought the best out of them in recent seasons.

But this season is a bit different.

The German giants dropped just eight points in 24 Bundesliga games in 2019/20 after Hansi Flick was appointed.

So far in 2020/21, they’ve dropped 17 points in 23 outings. It’s certainly not bad — it’s enough to have them top of the table again, if only by two points – but the drop off is clear.

Thiago wasn’t really replaced and an incredibly tight schedule, with a trip to Qatar for the Club World Cup squeezed in, has meant some injuries.

All of that has seen Bayern exit the DFB Pokal and look human in the league.

Following up an almost perfect season was always going to be hard. It’s been made even harder by the size of Bayern’s squad and the condensed nature of the season.

All of that does, though, mean Bayern have no room for slip ups.

They could find themselves in second by the time Saturday’s encounter kicks off, and face Dortmund, for once, in the knowledge that a win wouldn’t deliver a title race sucker punch to their closest competitors.

Will they raise their game in the same way they usually do in this fixture when it doesn’t carry the same weight? Will the absence of that burden allow the visitors to compete in Munich better than they have for years?

Or will it just be more of the same?

The change in dynamic means one thing is certain: the Bundesliga title race will be alive no matter how this one plays out.