Dortmund 90 minutes away from ending decade of Bayern dominance

T he title parade is scheduled to begin at exactly 12.09pm on Sunday afternoon, shortly after Borussia Dortmund’s victorious squad have signed the city’s famous Golden Book. The team bus will then circle one and a half times around Borsigplatz, the large roundabout in the north of Dortmund, before winding the four kilometres through the centre of town, where anything from 200,000 to 500,000 fans are expected to line the streets in celebration.

All week, as Dortmund’s players and staff have driven around the city going about their business, they will have noticed the barriers and road signs going up. They have felt their phone glow white-hot with ticket demands. They may even have heard the mayor of Dortmund declare: “We’re assuming the team won’t let it slip on Saturday.” And yet they will also know that all this is still contingent on one thing: the 90 minutes of football that could break the drought, or break them instead.

The deed is almost done. Victory at home against ninth-placed Mainz on Saturday afternoon would bring the curtain down on Bayern Munich’s decade of dominance. Victory against Mainz would bring the Bundesliga shield back to North Rhine-Westphalia for the first time since 2012, when Jürgen Klopp was young and Robert Lewandowski was up front and every kid with a copy of Fifa wanted to play as Borussia Dortmund.

Bayern, two points behind but with a vastly superior goal difference, must go to Köln, win and hope. Nothing but a win will be good enough for Bayern; in which case nothing but a win will be good enough for Dortmund. And in Bavaria they retain strong memories of the great escape of 2000, when they began the final day three points behind but sneaked in after Bayer Leverkusen lost at