Dortmund collapse lets Bayern snatch 11th straight Bundesliga crown

Not like this, Dortmund. Not like this.

Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga, but for once it required a dramatic, tension-packed final day rather than their typical march to the inevitable.

Borussia Dortmund kicked off the last day of the season with a two-point lead, meaning that a win over Mainz at an absolutely jam-packed Signal Iduna Park would finally, at long last, end Bayern’s 10-year reign. Hordes of fans showed up in yellow and black ready for a party.

Instead, they got a disastrous collapse, as Dortmund fell 2-0 down in the game’s early minutes. Bayern would pounce with an 89th minute winner to claim the Bundesliga in the most excruciating fashion.

With both games kicking off simultaneously, Kingsley Coman authored the first significant shift in the tension, producing a splendid finish after Bayern broke forward with authority in the eighth minute.

In that moment, Bayern took the lead on goal difference atop the table.

That part of the story wasn’t particularly shocking. Most probably expected a Bayern win over a Köln side that wasn’t fighting for a place in Europe or to avoid relegation.

It’s what happened next at Dortmund that pushed this game into “directed by Ari Aster” territory.

A 15th minute corner at the near post found a falling Andreas Hanche-Olsen, whose glancing no-look header somehow got over the line. Dortmund had fallen behind against mid-table Mainz, meaning that Bayern was now one point clear atop the table.

Still, down 1-0 at home? That’s salvageable, right? Within three minutes, Dortmund had a penalty kick given after a VAR check. Sébastien Haller, who returned mid-season after beating cancer, would step to the spot and equalize, right?

Right?

Nope. Finn Dahmen dove left and saved the spot kick, leaving the Yellow Wall with a creeping feeling of dread.

In the 24th minute, that inkling became full-blown horror, with Gregor Kobel getting a full hand to Karim Onisiwo’s header only for it to bobble over the line. In a game that was supposed to be a coronation, Dortmund were 2-0 behind.

Halftime came and went with Bayern in pole position, but Dortmund finally showed a pulse in the 69th minute. Who else but Gio Reyna, once again playing the super-sub role, would be involved? The U.S. men’s national team attacker made a difference yet again, playing a series of passes with Raphaël Guerreiro before the latter fired home.

Still, as long as Bayern was in the lead, Dortmund needed two goals, and a quick check over at the RheinEnergieStadion found the score still 1-0. Things were starting to get weird over there, though, as a Köln attack was broken up by sprinklers activating during play.

Maybe that was an indicator of what was to come, as Köln were given an 81st minute penalty after Serge Gnabry was spotted by VAR handling the ball just barely inside the box.

Dejan Ljubicic made no mistake, and suddenly Dortmund — in spite of itself — moved back into first place.

All the drama shifted to Köln, where Bayern were scrambling around in panic mode. Leon Goretzka, sent on in the 71st minute, was hauled off as Thomas Tuchel’s final, desperate throw of the dice saw Mathys Tel and Jamal Musiala sent into the fray.

The latter would end up making all the difference, with Gnabry making up for his handball by setting Musiala up for a stunning shot on the turn. In the 89th minute of the final game of the season, Bayern were back on top.

The news landed in Dortmund like a ton of bricks. Full time arrived at the RheinEnergieStadion, with Dortmund needing two stoppage-time goals at home to win it all. BVB predictably sent everyone forward, and when the five minutes of stoppage time dragged into a sixth, Niklas Süle would give them the tiniest glimmer of hope on a deflected shot after more good work from Reyna.

Could they win the title in the kind of drama in the most unreal way possible? Süle’s goal meant that both Dortmund and Bayern had 71 points, with the Bavarians ahead only on goal difference. A winner at this point would be possibly the greatest goal in German club soccer history.

Referee Marco Fritz was in a generous mood, tacking on some extra stoppage time, and Dortmund had several chances to hoof the ball into the box and hope for a miracle, while exhausted Mainz players kept finding just enough in their legs to scramble the ball away.

Finally, with an eighth minute of stoppage time beginning, Fritz ended it. Bayern could party with traveling supporters in Köln, while the scene at Dortmund was pure devastation.

(AP Photo/Michael Probst)

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