He is the form striker in the whole of Europe and so all eyes will be on Robert Lewandowski, who will be seeking to maintain his fine goal-scoring run when Bayern Munich host Borussia Dortmund in Germany’s Der Klassiker on Sunday.

Bayern Munich’s in-form Polish striker Lewandowski, who star has scored 10 goals in his last three games, will be looking to add more misery for his former club.

Der Klassiker or German Clasico, is the name given to the official match between Germany’s two most successful teams, Bayern and Dortmund, who ahead of tomorrow’s game, have met a total of 108 times with Bayern leading the win ratio 49-29 and the other 30 encounters resulting in draws.

Since 1994, only four clubs other than these two giants have won the German Bundesliga—and in this period, the Bavarians have won 12 titles as compared to five for Dortmund.

The first segment of the rivalry between Bayern and Dortmund was from 1994 to 1998 where the later won two Bundesliga titles and the UEFA Champions League.

The term German Clasico was coined based on the Spanish El Clásico between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona—actually; all top European leagues have their own version of Clasico.

France has PSG vs Olympique de Marseille, England has Manchester United vs Liverpool in Italy; it’s the Milan derby between AC and Inter Milan while in Portugal, is FC Porto vs Sporting Lisbon.

Back to the Der Klassiker, after two Bundesliga titles for Dortmund in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons, both teams met in the 2013 UEFA Champions League final at Wembley which Bayern won 2-1.

Sunday’s game is going to be the 19^th time the teams have met in the last five years and Dortmund lead the series with nine wins, two draws and seven defeats.

Bayern, however, won both league meetings last season, but Dortmund took both the German Cup semi-final in Munich on penalties and the 2014 German Super Cup title against their arch enemies.

Although both teams made an excellent start to this season, with Dortmund winning the first four league matches in a row, same as Bayern but "The Black and Yellows” have since drawn the last two hence falling off the pace by four points.

It may be just early days into the season, but Thomas Tuchel’s team have their work cut out in their bid to close down Bayern’s unrelenting march to an historic fourth straight Bundesliga title, which, if they achieve it, they would become the first team to it.

Tuchel was in April announced the replacement for Jurgen Klopp, who helped Dortmund achieve great success, winning two German league titles in 2012 and 2013 and also reaching the Champions League final.

However, last season Dortmund’s form nosedived—the club even flirted with relegation before four consecutive wins in February helped propel them to Europa League qualification. But that chaotic campaign was enough to prompt Klopp to take his own sabbatical.

Tuchel has made quite an impact since taking over, guiding Dortmund to 11 successive wins across three competitions, though have slightly faltered of late drawing their last two league games matches against Hoffenheim and Darmstadt.

Dortmund’s 2-2 draw last Sunday against newly promoted Darmstadt in which striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored twice, therefore becoming the only player in Bundesliga history to score in the first seven matches of the season.

And although BVB can no longer rely on Lewandowski, they can call on the goal scoring prowess of their Gabon international Aubameyang, who has netted 9 league goals, one less than Lewandowski.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw