Borussia Dortmund vs. Bayern Munich: 5 key matchups

Borussia Dortmund take on Bayern Munich at the Signal Iduna Park on Saturday. Here are five matchups that could decide the result.

Although the Klassiker headlines that have accompanied this fixture in recent years are a marketing ploy born of the Bundesliga hype machine, it’s genuinely a huge game this season. A win for Dortmund would confirm that we have a title race on our hands, and it’s been an awfully long time since the German top flight has seen one of those.

Predicting which players will face each other on Saturday is tricky, however, because (1) Dortmund still have an absurdly large squad and (2) Bayern have been playing so badly in recent months there are no longer many automatic starters in the Munich lineup.

Nonetheless, these are likely to be the key individual battles that will dictate the outcome.

Manuel Neuer vs. Paco Alcacer

Prior to the injury that kept Neuer out for the majority of last season, he had been almost preternaturally good for more than half a decade. His nickname – “The Wall” – was entirely apt.

Those with longer memories, however, will recall that Neuer had looked fallible during his early days with both Schalke and Bayern. And this season he has returned to looking distinctly human again.

In stark contrast, Paco Alcacer has netted a goal every 29 minutes in the Bundesliga, although the terrifying/disappointing thing is that he probably should have scored even more.

Never an automatic starter during his time with Barcelona — despite averaging a respectable 0.5 league goals per 90 minutes in each of his seasons at the Camp Nou — Alacacer has been revitalized by joining a side in desperate need of a proper number 9.

While Maximilian Philipp has shown promise and Marco Reus can be effective as a false 9, Alcacer’s presence on the pitch has taken Dortmund to another level. Back in the Spain squad after a two-year absence — and scoring for his national team, too — the biggest concern for Dortmund is how they would cope should Alcacer suffer an injury.

Jadon Sancho vs. David Alaba

After beginning the season as an impact sub for Dortmund — and what an impact it was, with five assists in six league appearances off the bench — Jadon Sancho has since made four straight Bundesliga starts, keeping the poster boy of U.S. soccer, Christian Pulisic, out of the starting lineup in the process.

Sancho’s debut performances for the club last season were less than sparkling, but the English teenager has clearly benefited from being given those minutes in the second half of the 2017-18 campaign.

His displays in recent months have been particularly galling for Bayern fans, not just because they’ve been calling for Franck Ribery and ARjen Robben to be replaced for several seasons now, but also due to the fact Bayern apparently passed up on the opportunity to sign Sancho in the summer of 2017.

Like Bayern’s other first-choice full-back, Joshua Kimmich, David Alaba has ambitions to play in central midfield, although his inconsistent performances in that position for the Austrian national team haven’t helped his cause.

Still only 26 years old, Alaba has been a regular at Bayern since 2011, and while he’s played in most of the team’s disappointing performances this season, he’s managed to escape the wrath of the fans so far.

Roman Buerki vs. Robert Lewandowski

There was widespread surprise and a considerable amount of dismay among Dortmund supporters when new coach Lucien Favre failed to sign a new first-choice goalkeeper in the summer.

Of course, Marwin Hitz was brought in on a free transfer after his contract with Augsburg expired. But it was clear that Hitz had been signed as a capable backup, a replacement for Dortmund’s second-choice keeper Roman Weidenfeller, who retired in the summer, rather than for Buerki.

Buerki has subsequently repaid Favre’s faith in spades, making a series of excellent, game-altering saves. With Marcel Schmelzer and Lukasz Piszczek injured and Omer Toprak out of favor, 27-year-old Buerki has often found himself the elder statesman of Dortmund’s back line. And this increased seniority seems to have had a beneficial effect on his performances.

Lewandowski, in contrast, was clearly keen to leave his club in the summer, with Real Madrid reportedly his favored destination, although that does raise the question why the Polish striker signed a new long-term contract at Bayern in December 2016.

Earlier in 2018 he’d ditched his long-term agent Cezary Kucharski, who had represented Lewandowski for more than a decade, and subsequently signed up with the infamous Pini Zahavi in an apparent bid to force his way out of the club

Those efforts were unsuccessful, but the next time he wore Bayern colors, Lewandowski put in a pugnacious — and brilliant — performance in the German Super Cup. His running battle with Frankfurt captain David Abraham that day left Lewandowski with a hat-trick, and a bloody nose.

Lewandowski hasn’t looked like a player whose mind is elsewhere since that game either, managing three assists and five goals in the Bundesliga and scoring four times in the Champions League. It’s easy to understand why Bayern have been so reluctant to let him leave — they’re likely to find replacing the Pole as difficult as Dortmund did back in 2014.

Marco Reus vs. Niklas Suele

Having finally made it to a major international tournament only for Germany’s title defense to end in disaster, Marco Reus has thankfully managed to put the disappointment of this summer’s World Cup behind him. Indeed, he’s thriving after being reunited with Favre, the coach under whom Reus made his name at Gladbach, where he became Germany’s player of the year in 2012

Although he was at fault for Freiburg’s equalizer in Munich last Saturday, Niklas Suele has tended to be the model of quiet efficiency since joining from Hoffenheim in the summer of 2017. He’s been the first-choice center-back at Bayern this season, with Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng rotating in to partner him, and also started for the German national team in their recent Nations League clash against France.

Axel Witsel vs. James Rodriguez

With two of Javi Martinez, Renato Sanches and Leon Goretzka likely to play, Bayern won’t lack a physical presence or tenacity in the middle of the pitch. But Thiago being out injured means James Rodriguez will shoulder the burden of midfield creativity.

Whether the 27-year-old Colombian’s efforts to dictate play are successful will depend largely on how his duel with Axel Witsel progresses. Although Witsel’s considerable destructive talents are likely to come to the fore here, the biggest and most pleasant surprise since his arrival is how involved he’s been in Dortmund’s forward play.

For the Belgian national side, his brief has been to sit deep and provide a shield behind the team’s extravagantly talented attacking players, but he’s thrived in Germany after being granted greater freedom by Favre.

During the summer, the Dortmund coach clearly identified shoring up Dortmund’s porous midfield as a priority, bringing in not just Witsel but also Thomas Delaney. That’s looked like money well spent so far this season.