Bundesliga, Week 30: Dortmund Make Title Claim With Win

Borussia Dortmund have one hand on the Bundesliga trophy after they pulled off a spectacular victory over Bayern Munich on Wednesday. Bayern had their chances to equalize on multiple occasions, but failed to take their chances over and over again as Der BVB held on for a 1-0 win.

The Bavarians had much more of the ball and more quality chances in the second half, but Dortmund found the only goal of the match in the 77th minute. Kevin Großkreutz created the chance with a shot from the edge of the penalty area that was going to be on target if it was allowed to run all the way through to the goal, but it would have been easily saved by Neuer. Instead, it never got to the Bayern keeper. Lewandowski was in perfect position to redirect the ball and he deflected it away from the Bayern keeper with a brilliant backwards flick with the inside of his boot. It rolled into the back of the net for the game’s only goal.

There haven’t been any goals in the first 45 minutes of the massive Bundesliga title decider between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, but there’s been plenty of entertainment. Both sides have defended brilliantly, and the match has featured a number of big saving tackles that prevented clear scoring opportunities. The highlight of the first half was a huge save early by Manuel Neuer, and it’s 0-0 at halftime.

That big save came in just the sixth minute, on a shot by Shinji Kagawa. He send Neuer the wrong way and appeared to score, but at the last possible tenth of a second, Neuer lifted his leg and kicked the ball away. Robert Lewandowski had a follow up attempt that was also saved.

Ready for German football’s biggest match of the year? Defending champions Borussia Dortmund will have to weather a spirited charge from Bayern Munich if they’re to retain the Bundesliga crown, and there’d be no better way to do that then by beating the Champions League semifinalists at home and establishing a six-point cushion at the top of the league. If Bayern win, however, they’ll leapfrog their opposition on goal differential - and they’ll be looking for revenge after suffering a 1-0 loss to BVB at the Allianz Arena earlier this year.

Unlike England, where one team is running away with the title and both Italy and France, where the two main title contenders met with nearly a dozen games remaining in the season, Germany has produced a massive late-season title showdown between its two best teams. In the fifth to last fixture of the year, Bayern Munich travel away to Borussia Dortmund, trailing the defending champions by just three points.

Bayern have won every one of their games in the Bundesliga since mid-February, but unlike Dortmund, they have lost after the winter break. They are the two form teams in Germany, and it would be unfair to say that one is the clear favorite over the other on Wednesday.

It is an understatement to say that Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich saw their 2010-2011 campaigns end in different fashions. Flying high from beginning to end, Dortmund were crowned league champions and finished seven points ahead of their nearest challenger. Bayern barely recovered from a near-disastrous slump and finished in third.

The last time the Bundesliga title was away from Munich for more than one season was in 1994-1996 when the championship was, where else, but in Dortmund. Since that time, Bayern have won nine of the 15 Bundesliga titles. Things were naturally going to fall into place for them to win the title as their steely determination overpowered Dortmund’s ... fun.

Borussia Mönchengladbach and Werder Bremen will both leave the Weserstadion on Tuesday feeling as if they could have walked away with three points, but the reality is that both could have easily also walked away with none, so the one point each picked up in the 2-2 draw was probably fair.

Bremen were first off the mark, getting a 17th-minute goal from Markus Rosenberg that gave them a lead they would hold through halftime. The match was not calm before the break, though, with both teams getting chances and, most importantly, Bremen going down to 10 men after Sebastian Boenisch was sent off for a poor tackle.