Rivalry with Borussia Dortmund
Die Schwarzgelben – The Black and Yellow
Borussia Dortmund is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional football team, which plays in the Bundesliga. The club holds a long-standing rivalry with Ruhr neighbours Schalke 04, against whom they contest the Revierderby. They also contest Der Klassiker with FC Bayern Munich.
- Rivalry Name
- Der Klassiker
- First Competitive Meeting
- 1965 (Bundesliga era)
- Most Successful Club in Rivalry History
- Bayern Munich
- Key Historical Context
- Decisive matches often determine the Bundesliga champion
Lore & Background
Dortmund is the second most decorated German football team; domestically, they have eight league championships, five DFB-Pokals (won in 1965, 1989, 2012, 2017, and 2021), and six DFL-Supercups. Internationally, they won the UEFA Champions League in 1997, the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1966, and the Intercontinental Cup in 1997, in addition to being the runners-up in the Champions League in 2013 and 2024 and UEFA Cup (now Europa League) runners-up in 1993 and 2002.
In Their Own Story
Inside Signal Iduna Park, the air vibrates with a tension unique to Der Klassiker. The Yellow Wall rises as one, a sea of black and yellow pressing against the glass, while the blue-and-white-clad Bayern contingent roars back from the opposite end, their voices cutting through the noise. When play begins, the ball is struck not just with precision, but with the weight of history. Every tackle and save carries the burden of shifting Germany's balance of power. When the final whistle sounds, the stadium either erupts or falls into stunned silence; regardless of the result, one truth remains: the hierarchy of German football has been challenged.
Reader's Guide
The club was founded on 19 December 1909 by a group of young men unhappy with the Catholic church-sponsored Trinity Youth. The name Borussia is Latin for Prussia but was taken from Borussia beer from the nearby Borussia brewery in Dortmund. Since 1974, Dortmund have played their home games at the Westfalenstadion; the stadium is the largest in Germany, the Yellow Wall, a standing terrace in the South Stand, is the largest of its kind in Europe, and Dortmund has the highest average attendance of any association football club in the world.
Did You Know?
- Dortmund is the largest sports club by membership in Germany after FC Bayern Munich, with about 218,000 members.
- The club also has a women's handball team.
- Under the directorship of Michael Zorc in the 2010s, Dortmund cultivated a reputation for spotting and developing young talent.
More in Club History & Eras
Elsewhere in the Bayern Munich universe
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