Dortmund challenges Bayern
The league’s last hope
October 18, 2025 – 11:03 a.mReading time: 4 minutes
It’s only the 7th matchday – and yet Borussia Dortmund is almost the Bundesliga’s last hope of stopping FC Bayern in the championship.
Toni Kroos knows exactly what he is talking about when he comments on FC Bayern’s impressive start with ten competitive game wins this season. After all, Kroos was part of the Bayern team in the 2012/13 season, which started with nine wins and ended up winning the first treble in the club’s history.
“As a player, I always hated it when people said: ‘Oh, you’ll just be champions this year.’ The games have to be played first,” said Kroos in his podcast “Einfach mal Luppen”, which he runs together with his brother Felix. Toni Kroos was all the more surprised by what he said in the same breath: “Nevertheless, I believe that Bayern will be champions in March or April at the latest.”
Kroos said he knows from his own experience that players don’t like to hear that. “But that’s just the way it is. It’s too obvious this year.” And the dominance of Bayern, who also won the supposedly difficult away game at Eintracht Frankfurt 3-0 before the international break, is too clear, at least in Kroo’s perception.
After just six match days, many people are already asking themselves who can actually beat Bayern or even pose a threat to them in the fight for the championship?
For Kroos it is already clear: “The opponent is missing. Leverkusen is automatically missing due to the upheaval. Dortmund and Leipzig are simply not there in the long term either, as the last few years have shown.” Kroos continued: “In terms of consistency, there are no opponents in the Bundesliga who challenge you in the table.”
What may already be the league’s last hope of breaking Bayern’s winning streak and threatening dominance is now called Borussia Dortmund. BVB, which is four points behind Bayern in the table, is in any case willing to seriously challenge the German record champions in the top game in Munich on Saturday (from 6:30 p.m. in the live ticker on t-online).