6 min: And now things come alive! Robben plays a give-and-go with Muller and thumps in a left-footer which Weidenfeller saves superbly, deflecting over the bar! Alonsos corner is then cleared. 30 seconds later Robben gets another chance but balloons over.
4 min: But its been a pretty quiet start. Durm makes a game run up the left for BVB but Robben, to mild surprise, comes back to crowd him out.
2 min: A hint of what to expect as Bayern press early on before Aubameyang tries to get away down the right. He lifts the ball a little optimistically towards Reus and Benatia mops up.
This should be fun.
Pep Guardiola has negotiated the stairs down to the Allianz Arena tunnel expertly. A scamper down the first set; a quick pause; a pitter-patter down the second. He, and the teams, and now out. The atmosphere sounds excellent. Kick-off in a couple...
Im still wondering what was in the dinner Dortmunds board passed up on. Its unlikely that Bayern will have been dishing up humble pie.
Flooding you with links to big Dortmund victories over Bayern shouldnt be interpreted as bias; its more to emphasise that this particular game might not hinge too much on league position. This happened in April:
I mentioned Immobiles four goals earlier so it would be remiss not to state that the man he replaced, Robert Lewandowski, has scored just the five so far. Mario Gotze might be the more painful one as things stand. He has seven from his role behind the striker, and has been playing sublimely of late.
Ill buy in to this idea of Der Klassiker why not? Both teams are tremendously entertaining and have been exceptionally successful but its very much a modern thing so its name might need a spot of revision. The fixtures Wikipedia page, for example, only lists results going back as far as 2007/08. Id say its been a little longer, ups and downs notwithstanding, that these sides have both been going to honours regularly but still.
Its true, though, that Klopps team will need to raise themselves if theyre to do anything today. They have been ravaged by injuries at various times in the last year and might now benefit from a stable-ish back four along with the likes of Reus, Shinji Kagawa and Henrikh Mkhitaryan being fit and firing. They can only get better, surely. Of late, if this has been Klopps favoured heavy-metal football (that interview is well worth revisiting by the way; its outstanding) then its been more Limp Bizkit than Slayer. Or something. Which band should they be at present? Thats an invitation to email me, by the way. I talk less that way.
Dont think Dortmund can do this? Not sure they stick one to the man? Uncertain whether Bayern can be bloodied? This happened in August:
Kick-off, Ive neglected to mention, is 5.30pm UK time.
The two Dortmund changes from the Hannover game, by the way, see Sokratis replace Neven Subotic at centre-back Sebastian Kehl in for Ilkay Gundogan in central midfield. Ciro Immobile, who has been pretty much exactly that so far with just two Bundesliga goals to go with another pair in the Champions League, is on the bench again with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, seven goals so far, leading the line in his fleet-footed manner. Reus, of course, starts.
So what do we think of that? Im going to unpack that Bayern lineup for you as its been tweeted all out of kilter:
Its not really news, but Bayerns armoury is pretty overwhelming isnt it? They have had to do without Franck Ribery for much of the season he has managed just 75 minutes in the Bundesliga, although he scored at Roma and again in the Hamburg win and missed Arjen Robben last weekend. Both are raring to go now. Team news as soon as we have it....
So this is A Thing now, isnt it? Der Klassiker. The German Clasico. Mehr als ein spiel. The clash of the Bundesligas immovable objects. Opera plays heavy metal. Mozart hosts Motörhead. This is a global event nowadays and we, reader, are about to chew over it together.
Which is more than the two clubs boards have done before this particular meet-up. While Dortmund might fancy themselves as being your wrong-side-of-the-tracks alternative to smug, prim Bayern, these rivals have been behaving like the Montagues and Capulets in the last few days with the traditional pre-match dinner eschewed after a spat caused, or at least intensified, by Bayerns apparent pursuit of Marco Reus. Subsequent attempts at diplomacy by Karl-Heinz Rummenigge who, like most who pass through Bayerns echelons, is rarely short of a word of two, have not been entirely convincing. And not only in sentiment: Bayerns CEOs assertion that Dortmund will easily qualify for the Champions League this season is not holding a great deal of water out there on the pitch.
