The last few years has seen the Bundesliga being utterly dominated by Bavarian Giants Bayern Munich, with their closest rivals Borussia Dortmund seemingly yet to come up with a recipe to overthrow the title holders.
The Bundesliga is a prestigious competition but unlike the Premier League, it clearly lacks thrill and stiff competition at the summit and faces the huge problem of duopoly due to the massive difference in quality between the top two teams and rest of the League table.
Judging by Dortmund’s displays in the League last season, it’s almost like Der BVB are now in touching distance of reaching Bayern Munich’s level of dominance as they came ever so close to winning the League last season.
Thomas Tuchel’s side manifested their proficiency in front of goal in more ways than one as they managed to bag an overall tally of 82 goals in the Bundesliga last season, while their Bavarian counterparts scored a total of 80 goals (two goals less).
Bayern won the League with a ten point gap over Dortmund, which gave pundits a reason to believe that Dortmund have narrowed the gap between them and Bayern Munich, or so we thought.
How Dortmund’s Transfer Activity Reflects Their Title Ambitions?
Dortmund has a long history of selling their key players to their rivals, almost like how Southampton operates in the Premier League as they recently sold three of their mainstays who have brought them significant amounts of success in the past few seasons.
Matts Hummels has now joined the likes of Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski in an exclusive list of players who have made a switch over to Bayern Munich. Not only this, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Ilkay Gundogan were also allowed to join Manchester United and Manchester City respectively.
Dortmund’s willingness to let the top performers go so easily is quite astounding to say the very least as they were instrumental to Dortmund in all competitions last season, most especially Mkhitaryan as the Armenian midfielder either scored or assisted 49 goals for Thomas Tuchel’s side last season.
To balance the books, Dortmund brought in six players with most notable of them being Sebastian Rode and Marc Bartra. But with the sort of funds the club raked in from the sales of Mkhitaryan, Gundogan, and Hummels, they should’ve been able to acquire players of the same ilk.
The fact remains that while Dortmund continuously replaces their world-class players with average talents, Bayern Munich keeps on luring the big names to the Allianz Arena, which is a major factor behind their phenomenal success in the Bundesliga. Dortmund needs a more stringent player retention policy to keep their best players at the club.
Does Dortmund Stand a Chance Against Bayern?
The current looks of things suggest that Dortmund is set for another second place finish. Bayern seem to have assembled a near-perfect squad with immense quality and proficiency in all departments, while Dortmund has to settle for the relatively average players they have In their ranks.
Although, despite Dortmund’s activity in the transfer market, they still look capable of scoring goals.
Aubamayeng and Marco Reus are still part of the squad, but their proficiency in front of goal is likely to suffer a great deal in the absence of quality passes and crosses Henrikh Mkhitaryan provided throughout the course of last season as Armenian midfielder will be a Manchester United player next season.
The new Bundesliga season looks delicately poised to be another two-party affair with Bayern looking the likelier side to secure the trophy, but the predictions can work only once the season kicks off and things begin to shape up in the German top flight.
Carlo Ancelotti will be keen on winning it in his first season in charge, but as the saying goes, this is football anything can happen.
We’ve seen quite a number of surprises happen in the last few months alone, so it won’t be much of a major shocker if Bayern loses out on the title. But even on that note, the title already looks like it’s theirs to lose.