Football news - Borussia Dortmund's latest defeat to Bayern Munich is history repeating itself

There was a familiar dynamic to Tuesday’s Klassiker clash, with the Black and Yellows plotting the downfall of German football’s predominant force, and a familiar outcome too.

Some had hoped that this time, finally, things would be different. Dortmund had won six league games on the spin to surge past all others in the Bundesliga standings. All others besides Bayern Munich, that is, with Hansi Flick’s side also stringing six straight victories together to establish a four-point lead as title race pacesetters.

Dortmund, it was argued, had the pace and potency to at least keep up, with the likes of Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho, Thorgan Hazard, Julian Brandt, Raphael Guerreiro and Achraf Hakimi all in exceptional form. The 10-week hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic did little to knock them from their stride, scoring six without reply against Schalke and Wolfsburg.

The distance this exciting young Dortmund side still has to go, however, was exposed by what happened in this season-defining encounter. Haaland had a shot cleared off the line within 30 seconds and could have been awarded a penalty for a Jerome Boateng handball that bizarrely went unnoticed by the VAR, but the Black and Yellows were far from the red hot side they’d been in recent weeks.

Bayern Munich have also played better, much better, this season, but this was a demonstration of the culture that has been cultivated at the club as much as it was of their footballing brilliance. This was a match won almost purely through muscle memory, because so many in their team have been here and done this so many times before.

Indeed, this result means Borussia Dortmund have now won just three of their last 16 encounters with Bayern Munich, a run that highlights the gulf that still exists between the two sides. The best teams don’t necessarily win the big games, but the mentally strongest do. It takes time to build that mindset and that’s something Dortmund haven’t yet been afforded.

They aren’t likely to get it either. What is perhaps most frustrating for the Westfalenstadion outfit is that while they might boast a crop of young players to rival any other in the game right now, it’s almost certain that they will fragment before too long. Sancho, for instance, seems destined for the Premier League.

Hakimi will return to parent club Real Madrid at the end of the season. Haaland has only been a Dortmund player since January and he’s already the subject of much speculation linking him wither another move.

It’s been this way for Dortmund for years. They benefit from it in a way - they wouldn’t have been able to sign Haaland without their track record of harnessing young players before selling them on - but the sacrifice made is evident in matches like the one they suffered against Bayern Munich on Tuesday. The sight of Robert Lewandowski on the opposite side, the winning side, tonight was yet another reminder of what they could have been and why they likely won’t ever become that any time soon.

Favre will likely pay for this with his job at the end of the season.

The former Borussia Monchengladbach and Nice coach has a history of producing attractive, dynamic teams, but not winning teams and history appears to have repeated itself for him at Dortmund. But there’s more than just Favre preventing Dortmund from becoming a winning team.