Bayern Munich regains German historical traveler lead in soccer

Bayern Munich's dominance in the Bundesliga was not evident in its performance across the German traveling soccer championship for a couple of years. But Bayern came back strong in 2020-21 with 16 games of championship.

We can't say Bayern Munich isn't up to a challenge.

For the last two years, Bayern has struggled in the lineal championship across Germany, even as it was winning the Bundesliga. By the end of 2019-20, the Bavarians had been surpassed on the all-time traveler list in Germany by their perpetual second fiddle, Borussia Dortmund.

Bayern had a chance to challenge for the title on Oct. 24, and succeeded with a 5-0 win against Eintracht Frankfurt in Munich. Then, Bayern defended that title nine times, finally surrendering it against Borussia Mönchengladbach in January.

Bayern picked up another title from Werder Bremen in mid-March and held it for five more games before losing at Mainz on April 24.

For the year, that was 16 games of title for Bayern Munich, which now is up to 52 historically. Dortmund finally picked up a couple games of title at the very end and now is in second place with 41.

Bayer Leverkusen remains in third place with 19 games, followed by Leipzig at 17 and Bremen at 15.

Bayern Munich captures third German Big Six in 2019-20

Bayern Munich never wins the German Big Six easily, but always ends up winning it. In 2019-20, the Bavarians had a new challenger, Eintracht Frankfurt.

Bayern Munich won its third German Big Six title in three tries, ending another thrilling campaign for this German internal pyramid. Like the first two Big Six championships, this 2019-20 version was a narrow escape for the Bavarians.

As we entered this third year of the German Big Six, four teams were in it for the third time – Bayern, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and 1899 Hoffenheim. But when covid shut down German soccer in March 2020, the Big Six leader was an interloper, Eintracht Frankfurt, standing 4-2-2 with 14 points, while Bayern was 3-3-2 and 12 points. 

Each team had two Big Six games left, and one was head-to-head. They played that game May 23, and Bayern crushed Eintracht, 5-2, in Munich. Three days later, Bayern went to Dortmund and dropped Borussia, 1-0. With that, Bayern was done for the year in the Big Six with 5-3-2, 18 points.

On June 12, Leipzig went to Hoffenheim and turned up a 2-0 win, improving its station to 4-4-1, 16 points. One Big Six game remained, three days later, in Leipzig against Dortmund. With a win, Leipzig would win the Big Six championship.

Dortmund scored at the 30-minute mark of the first half, and that was all the scoring until extra time at the very end, when Dortmund scored again, both goals by Erling Braut Haaland. Thus, Bayern Munich won the Big Six, once again. The win for Dortmund also ensured that it would be spared relegation to the Middle Six.

Instead, Hoffenheim is going down, for the first time, along with Hertha, the 2018-19 Middle Six champions and the 2019-20 Big Six cellar dwellers.

Coming up from the Middle Six will be Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg. Leverkusen is our yo-yo team between the Big Six and Middle Six, alternating between them annually. Wolfsburg was our wooden spoon in 2017-18, the last place team in the Little Six. But the Wolves rallied to second place in the Little Six a year later, and now they have earned promotion to the Big Six as the Middle Six runner-up.

On the bottom of the Middle Six, obviously Mainz had a tough time of it. Against the rest of the Bundesliga, Mainz won 11, drew three and lost 10. Now, this is a tough Middle Six. Borussia Mönchengladbach qualified for the Champions League, while Leverkusen and Wolfsburg both qualified for the Europa League. But no wins? We'll note that against the top four Big Six teams – Bayern, Dortmund, Eintracht and Leipzig – Mainz was 3-5.

But the Middle Six assignment isn't about beating Bayern, Dortmund, Eintracht and Leipzig. It's about beating Mönchengladbach, Leverkusen and Wolfsburg, and Mainz couldn't do it. So, Mainz drops down to the Little Six, along with Augsburg.

Union Berlin won the German Little Six and moves up to the middle. Werder Bremen gets the second-place promotion in a goal-differential tiebreaker over FC Köln. The promotion could have gone to Köln, because Bremen finished 16th in the Bundesliga and needed to survive a relegation playoff to remain in the circuit. Bremen handled it well enough, splitting two legs with FC Heidenheim and prevailing on away goals.

Dortmund, Leverkusen, big winners in German traveler chase

While Bayern Munich dominates the Bundesliga, winning it for the eighth straight time in 2019-20, the Southern squad has faltered during the last two years of the traveling championship. Now, Borussia Dortmund is the all-time leader in Germany.

The two big winners in the German traveling soccer championship for 2019-20 were Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen.

Dortmund is forever the second fiddle while Bayern Munich dominates the Bundesliga every year. But the Bavarians, 30-6-4 with three championships in three years of tracking through May 5, 2018, are since then only 2-3-2 playing for the German traveling title.

Meanwhile, Dortmund, a steady hand in this chase through the years, tacked up another nine games of title in 2019-20, compared with only two games of title for Bayern. With that, Dortmund now is the all-time leader in Germany with 39 games of traveling championship, compared with 36 games for the Munich side.

Dortmund finished second in the 2019-20 chase to Leverkusen, which won three titles and held them for a total of 11 games. Leverkusen's longest championship, a seven-game affair, bridged the Bundesliga's two-month hold time for the coronavirus.

With its 11 games of title in 2019-20, Leverkusen moved up to third all-time in the German standings at 19 games. Leipzig now is fourth at 17 and Werder Bremen, with 13, is in fifth place.

Bremen ended the 2018-19 season with the championship and started 2019-20 with a chance to expand its total, but dropped the title, 3-1, at home to Fortuna Düsseldorf in the season opener. A week later, Leverkusen won at home against Düsseldorf for its first title of the season.

Dortmund surges to top of all-time German standings

Once, Bayern Munich held a huge lead all-time in the German traveling soccer championship, but Borussia Dortmund has chipped away through the years and now is the all-time leader.

Borussia Dortmund has rallied in 2019-20 to surpass Bayern Munich in the all-time German lineal championship, scoring a seven-game title that bridged mid-September to early November.

The Dortmund squad now has 39 games of title in Germany since we began tracking the traveling title in 2015-16. Bayern Munich now is second all-time with 36 games.

We began this exercise with Bayern Munich as the provisional titleholder in 2015-16, a strong choice considering that the Bavarians have, as of this publication, won the Bundesliga seven straight times. Bayern immediately tacked up 15 games of championship. But Dortmund, Bayern's flustered second banana in German soccer, put in a pretty good showing that year, too, with 11 games of championship. 

Bayern expanded its lead in 2016-17 with 10 games of title against only one for Dortmund, then the 2017-18 season saw Bayern end Dortmund's six-game title with a 6-0 drubbing in Munich before adding on five more games of title going into May. Bayern nosed out Dortmund that year, 9-8 in games of title.

In 2018-19, though, Bayern failed in its two challenges. The first was the key, a 3-2 loss at Dortmund, extending the Prussians' latest championship to six games. By the time the season was over, Dortmund picked up 10 games on Bayern Munich, coming to within four.

The Black and Yellow ("Die Schwarzgelben") produced its sixth title in our five years of tracking with a 4-0 home win against Bayer Leverkusen on Sept. 14 and began its march to the all-time lead. With a 2-2 draw at SC Freiberg on Oct. 5, Dortmund pulled even with Bayern at 34 games of title all-time. On Oct. 19, Dortmund moved ahead with a 1-0 win at Borussia Monchengladbach. 

Two more defenses later, sitting on games 37 of title, Dortmund visited Bayern Munich. The result was typical. Bayern Munich walloped Dortmund, 4-0. In seven games between these clubs for the German traveling championship starting with 2015-16, Bayern Munich has won four, Dortmund two, there was one draw and Bayern has dominated in goal differential, 20-6.

Bayern's latest win also brought it to 35 games of title all-time with an opportunity to rally, surpass Dortmund in short order and, perhaps, even add some cushion. But this Munich title lasted only one more game before the Bavarians fell to Bayer Leverkusen, 2-1, in Munich, on Nov. 30.

Dortmund snatched the title for another two-game stretch a month ago, bringing its all-time total to 39 games of title and its total for the season to nine. That's good for the season lead right now, but Leverkusen is on seven and holds the title with its next defense coming March 1 at RB Leipzig (6:30 a.m. PST).

Leipzig is third all-time in Germany with 17 games of linear championship. Leverkusen has shot up to fourth at 15. Werder Bremen began the year with 13 games of title and the hot position, but inexplicably lost its opener to newly promoted Fortuna Düsseldorf and remains still at 13 games, fifth all-time.

While all of this is happening with the linear championship in Germany, the Bundesliga is as thick of a title race as we've in Europe for some time. With 23 games down and 11 to go, Bayern is barely on top with 49 points in the standings, followed by Leipzig (48), Dortmund (45), Borussia Mönchengladbach (43) and Leverkusen (43).

Bayern wins another German Big Six with Dortmund crash

Bayern Munich won its second German Big Six title in 2018-19, this time with help from an unlikely collapse by Borussia Dortmund.

Another terrific race in the German Big Six ended with Bayern Munich surviving at the top, thanks to an unlikely collapse by its most reliable pursuer in Germany, Borussia Dortmund.

Entering the games of April 6, Dortmund led the Deutsche Big Six with 20 points and had only two games remaining – that day against Bayern in Munich, then a home game on April 27 against Schalke 04, which was winless in the Big Six. All that remained for Bayern was that one game with Dortmund.

Dortmund could have taken a drubbing from Bayern and still won the Big Six just by beating Schalke. And, in fact, the Munich squad crushed Dortmund, 5-0, in that April 6 game. But Dortmund then also lost, 4-2, to Schalke, giving Bayern its second Big Six title in two years.

Schalke won only one Big Six game in the year after being promoted, though it decided the Big Six title. But Schalke's fate as the last-place club in the Big Six had long been decided. Schalke is going back down, along with Bayer Leverkusen.

Hertha Berlin outlasted Eintracht Frankfurt at the top of the German Middle Six, but both are going to the top level in 2019-20. SC Freiberg and Hannover 96 both are being demoted to the German Little Six.

Mainz 05 and VfL Wolfsburg finished tied on top of the German Little Six. Both are being promoted to the Middle Six in 2018-19.

German traveling soccer race tightens in 2018-19

RB Leipzig won the traveling championship across Germany in 2018-19, while the standings all-time tightened up between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.

The all-time traveling championship race in Germany tightened up considerably in 2018-19.

Bayern Munich, the runaway leader through 2017-18, failed in two tries to procure the championship in 2018-19, opening up the race. Borussia Dortmund, the second-place club in the all-time standings, took advantage — actually made that advantage — rolling up 10 games of championship.

Through 2018-19, Bayern Munich still has the all-time lead with 34 games of title, but Borussia Dortmund is second with 30.

Dortmund began its 10-game title run with a 4-2 win at Bayer Leverkusen on Sept. 29 and held on until losing, 2-1, at Fortuna Düsseldorf, on Dec. 18. A key win in that streak came on Nov. 10, a 3-2 win at home against Bayern Munich.

The big winner in 2018-19 was RB Leipzig, which totaled 15 games of championship for the season and now is third all-time at 17. Leipzig won the prize with a 4-0 win at Fortuna Düsseldorf on Jan. 27 and kept it until the very last game of the season, a 2-1 loss at Werder Berlin on May 18. Right before that, Leipzig drew Bayern Munich, 0-0, again denying the Munich squad the title.

Werder Bremen now is fourth all-time in Germany with 13 games of championship. But the Hanseatic 11 is in position to improve its standing quickly, for it will take the championship into 2019-20.

Real Madrid tops first Euro traveler with 36 games of title

Real Madrid held onto the caretaker role with the first European traveling soccer championship for 27 games, then won one outright for the best season of the year. But Barcelona held the title going to 2017-18.

Real Madrid began the 2016-17 with the inaugural European traveling championship for winning the UEFA Champions League in 2016 and tore off 27 games of title defense. That was well more than enough to claim the traveling title for the season.

During its 27-game caretaker tour, Real Madrid won six UEFA Champions League pool games – two each against Sporting CP of Portugal, Borussia Dortmund of Germany and Legia Warsaw of Poland.

The Madrid side finally relinquished the championship on Jan. 15 with a 2-1 La Liga loss at Sevilla, three days after a 3-3 draw against the same opponent in the same location in the Copa del Rey. Included in that run of defenses was a 1-1 draw at Barcelona on Dec. 3, as Real Madrid put the European title on the line and Barcelona put up the world title. Neither changed hands with that result.

After Real Madrid lost the caretaker title, four Spanish clubs kicked it around for a few weeks before Los Blancos won it back in a 3-2 decision at Villareal on Feb. 26. Eight title defenses ensued before Real met Barcelona again on April 23 in Madrid with only the home side's continental title on the line. Barcelona snagged it with a 3-2 win. Barcelona won out to finish its La Liga season and carried the European championship into the 2017-18 season.

Bayern Munich starts Bundesliga campaign with 15 straight

Bayern Munich never actually won the traveling championship in Germany in 2015-16, but 15 straight defenses out of the gate made it the best team of the year.

Only five teams won the traveling prize in the Bundesliga during the 2015-16 season. But the best was Bayern Munich, which did not.

Bayern started the season defending the prize and defended it 15 straight times. But after losing, 3-1, to Borussia Morgengladbach on Dec. 5, Bayern would never see it again.

Instead, Dortmund won it on Feb. 21 and threatened to take it to the end. But Eintracht Frankfurt ended an 11-game Dortmund defense streak on May 7.

Thus, Bayern Munich is Team of the Year with this piece in the Bundsliga.

The only other teams to win the title were Bayer Leverkusen and Werder Bremen.