Bayern Munich ended victorious in a thrilling Der Klassiker against Dortmund despite trailing by two goals inside the first 10 minutes. Robert Lewandowski, as expected, took the center stage with a stunning hat-trick, which overshadowed Erling Haaland‘s double. Here we take a look at some of the takeaways from the six-goal thriller.
Haaland on the way to becoming a world-beater.
Despite ending on the losing side, Erling Haaland showed his brilliance by scoring two quickfire goals out of nowhere. Perhaps, the Norwegian has scored three braces in the last few weeks and his goal tally is 27 now in Bundesliga and Champions League. Dortmund are having a whirlwind season yet Haaland continues to be shining light. After proving himself against Bayern last night, the 20-year-old would certainly cause a transfer tussle among the European elites.
Lewandowski is a goal-scoring machine
We have run out of platitudes to describe the excellence of Robert Lewandowski, whose goal-scoring form looks to have no bounds. Week in week out, the Polish striker continues to deliver the goods and last night was one such instance. It has to be Lewandowski if Bayern are to make a comeback and he eventually did it in style by netting a hat trick. The 32-year-old has now scored 37 goals in all competition this season and he is the clear favourite to clinch the European Golden Shoe, which he missed by a whisker last year to Lazio striker Ciro Immobile.
Absence of big names and substitution fiasco let down Dortmund.
Dortmund weren’t strongest on the paper last night due to the absence of Jadon Sancho, Raphael Guerreiro and Gio Reyna. They knew that at some point of the game, they would be overwhelmed by Bayern’s attack. However, Edin Terzic’s substitution strategy went awry as Dortmund were filled with a handful of inexperienced and young players in the final quarter of the game. The defending champions scored two goals in the eleventh hour to throw a dagger in Dortmund’s heart, which could have been prevented if they got their substitution plans right.
Title race is heating up.
Bayern moved to the top of the pile, with RB Leipzig trailing them only by two points. Leipzig have made their way to the top without any fuss and are now looking a serious threat to Bayern’s title defence. We can expect a tough battle between these two clubs in the coming weeks whereas Dortmund are fighting for the top-four spot as they are now sixth in the table.
