How do Bayern and Dortmund stack up?

The first Klassiker of the Bundesliga season is upon us, and the stakes could hardly be higher at this early stage of the 2025/26 campaign. Bayern lead the table on 18 points, but second-place Dortmund could cut the deficit to just a single point if they can win at the Allianz Arena on Matchday 7. 

Bayern haven’t won this fixture at home since April 2023. What are their paths to victory, or indeed defeat? bundesliga.com looks at the key battles…

Watch: The Best of Der Klassiker

Bayern and Dortmund boast two of the best strikers in the world, let alone the Bundesliga, in Harry Kane and Serhou Guirassy.

The former has raced to the top of the domestic scoring charts this season, firing Bayern to first in the table with a barely fathomable 11 goals from six games. Guirassy, who has been the Englishman’s nearest challenger for the last two Torjägerkanonen, is seven behind having played a game fewer.

Watch: Kane, the Klassiker King

Guirassy edged Kane in last year’s UEFA Champions League, finishing as joint-top scorer alongside Barcelona’s Raphinha on 13 - while Kane scored 11 - but he still admits that he looks up to his fellow No.9.

“We both like scoring goals,” Guirassy told bundesliga.com in August. “Harry Kane is a world-class striker with a lot of experience. I watch a lot of football matches and am always learning. And that’s not a bad thing. You can always learn from other players…”

Kane could teach him a thing or two about Klassiker goals, too, having scored seven from his eight appearances in the fixture so far. Guirassy has only played in two, but is yet to open his account in Germany’s biggest fixture.

Neither of the aforementioned strikers operate in isolation, however. Kane’s closest company atop the scoring charts comes from Bayern teammate Luis Díaz, who, alongside his five goals, has contributed three assists to the Rekordmeister’s latest title charge.

Michael Olise, playing on the opposite flank to the former Liverpool man, was last season’s best assister with 15 in the league (and 23 across all competitions) and Bayern’s two wingers have combined for 43 shots already in the current campaign.

Watch: Bayern's terrific trio

But with Vincent Kompany sticking to a 4-2-3-1, the pair account for the vast majority of the champions’ attacking output from out wide. One of his predecessors in the Bayern hot-seat, now BVB boss Niko Kovač, has more options in this regard with his nominal 3-4-2-1. 

Karim Adeyemi is perhaps stylistically closest to Bayern’s wingers, and their former academy player is in a rich vein of form with three goals and three assists from his last six games. Once the Bundesliga’s quickest player, Adeyemi is now recording the fastest shots, with his winner against Wolfsburg on Matchday 4 clocked at a league-high 126 km/h (78.3 mph).

Watch: Adeyemi won September’s Goal of the Month with his Wolfsburg strike

But even if Bayern contain Adeyemi, there is more attacking support on the flanks behind him than Díaz or Olise might enjoy, with Daniel Svensson and Yan Couto blossoming as BVB wingbacks. They have contributed two goals each, while 15 shots have been laid off by the pair, making it statistical noise than they only boast one assist between them.

While Kane, Guirassy and Díaz are in their primes, Bayern and Dortmund are both well-versed in producing the next generation of stars.

The Bayern Campus has had the likes of Jamal Musiala and Alphonso Davies pass through it in recent years, while Dortmund have fielded some of the best young players in the game, such as Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham.

None will feature on Matchday 7. While Musiala and Davies are injured, Haaland and Bellingham have moved onto Manchester City and Real Madrid respectively. So who is next up?

Bayern’s most promising academy talent, and the one nearest the first team, is Aleksandar Pavlović, who is pushing Leon Goretzka hard for the right to partner Joshua Kimmich in central midfield. A fractured eye socket derailed his season start, but he could now get the nod at No.6, where he can bring his vision and distribution to bear. Lennart Karl, who impressed in pre-season, remains an understudy to Díaz and Olise for now.

Dortmund’s greenest first-team regulars are Maximilian Beier (22) and Jude’s younger brother Jobe Bellingham (20).

Beier is not so much understudy to Guirassy as he is a complementary attacking asset, having started five Bundesliga games this season alongside the Guinean. He already boasts a Klassiker goal to his name, from April's 2-2 draw at the Allianz.

Bellingham may have liked more minutes in Dortmund’s midfield, meanwhile, following his summer arrival from Sunderland. But where Pavlović has Kimmich and Goretzka for competition, he has Marcel Sabitzer, Felix Nmecha and Pascal Groß – and he has still played a game more than Bayern’s resident midfield prodigy. His recent inclusion in the Golden Boy Award shortlist is a reminder of just how much talent he has - and what better stage to show that than Der Klassiker?

Of course, the match-winner could come from other sources, and both teams boast players able to unpick even the most miserly of defences.

Julian Brandt and Serge Gnabry – with Musiala injured – are the two most natural No.10s involved, and both could prove invaluable to Julian Nagelsmann at the FIFA World Cup next summer if they can get enough minutes under their belts.

The problem for Brandt is that, although Kovač plays two nominal No.10s in his system, in a sense, he doesn’t play any. Adeyemi and Beier invariably occupy the supporting positions off Guirassy but the first is a winger by trade, and the second a striker.

A Guirassy injury in the warm-up against Mainz on Matchday 5 handed Brandt a chance, and he duly assisted both goals in a 2-0 win, but it was only his second start of the season, and he was back on the bench in the subsequent 1-1 draw with RB Leipzig.

Gnabry, on the other hand, is enjoying an Indian summer at Bayern. He perhaps would have been bound for a similar experience to Brandt at BVB had Musiala not broken his ankle playing for Bayern against Paris Saint-Germain in the FIFA Club World Cup in July. Whilst nobody would have wished for that, Gnabry has been the main beneficiary.

Watch: Gnabry on Bayern’s recent run

Uninterrupted at No.10, with Kane up ahead of him and Díaz and Olise either side, he has plundered three goals and three assists at a rate of one inside every hour he has played in the Bundesliga this term.

Bayern board member for sport Max Eberl said ahead of Der Klassiker: "I think Serge has come on very well under Vincent. His performances are his arguments and are good for him but also for us."

This season’s first Klassiker could hardly be more delicately poised. Both Bayern and Dortmund have multiple routes to victory. Who will come out on top? Find out by following bundesliga.com’s live blog right HERE.