Hosts thought they had salvaged an unlikely draw, but title and multiple records now loom for Vincent Kompany’s side
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t is not and will not be about the individual records. At least that is what Vincent Kompany has said on more than one occasion and will continue to say, despite Der Klassiker delivering the decisive blow in what was never really a Bundesliga title race on the final day of February. However, in the context of the league campaign, outside the bubble of what was a satisfying spectacle in a standalone sense, there may be little more to say.
Much as Kompany insisted that “prizes are awarded at the end of a season, not in February”, none of the 80,000 fans in Signal Iduna Park or those beyond needed any telling what this all meant. Joshua Kimmich’s beautifully taken late winner, snuffing out a late Borussia Dortmund comeback, gave Bayern Munich a 3-2 victory in an oscillating thriller and extended their lead at the top to 11 points, with 10 games to go. Game, set and match, even if Bayern’s CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen resisted an attempt by the presenters of Bild Sport to ply him with a glass of championship champagne on Sunday.
Kompany’s opposite number Niko Kovac talked of the early evening entertainment as being “a great advert for the league”, which it was and it wasn’t. The match itself electrified a willing home crowd, more motivated by the desire for redemption after Wednesday’s Champions League humiliation at Atalanta than any belief of a reopening of a battle for the summit. Yet what perhaps allowed this to be such an engrossing encounter might have been the removal of any genuine jeopardy before a ball was kicked. Dortmund dropping points at Leipzig in the last round of league games, extending a six-point Bayern lead at the top to eight, largely did away with the feeling that this was about contesting top spot.
