Lucien Favre's Dortmund has been unable to catch a break on the injury front of late.
Having already lost captain Marco Reus to ongoing fitness issues and center back Dan-Axel Zagadou to a ruptured ligament, Favre has now had to rule out midfielder Mahmoud Dahoud for the rest of the campaign as well.
Joshua Kimmich's winner in Bayern Munich's big game against Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday not only put the Bundesliga champions on track to retain their title but was a reminder of the midfielder's importance to their success.
The 25-year-old, whose delicate chip over the Dortmund keeper took Bayern seven points clear of their rivals with six matches remaining, will lead the team again against in-form Fortuna Duesseldorf on Saturday.
A crucial game beckons in the 2. Bundesliga's race for promotion as second-place Hamburg takes on third-place Stuttgart on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. EST.
Dieter Hecking's Hamburg holds a one-point lead over New Jersey native Pellegrino Matarazzo's Stuttgart in the second and final automatic-promotion spot. Neither side has been in great form of late; stretching back to before the pandemic-enforced shutdown, Hamburg has just one win in six games while Stuttgart is on a winless run of four games.
Fortuna Dusseldorf boosted their hopes of avoiding relegation from the Bundesliga as goals from Rouwen Hennings and Kenan Karaman helped them come from behind to beat Schalke 04 2-1 at home in a scrappy contest on Wednesday.
The result left Fortuna 16th, the relegation playoff spot, on 27 points from 28 games, one behind Mainz who stayed in the safety zone with a 1-1 draw at Union Berlin.
Schalke, who extended their winless league run to 10 matches, stayed ninth on 37 points.
To maintain any chance of catching Bayern Munich and winning the Bundesliga title, third-place Leipzig needed to defeat 11th-place Hertha Berlin on Wednesday at Red Bull Arena.
Things started out poorly with Hertha’s Marko Grujić, on loan from Liverpool, opening the scoring in the ninth minute. However, Leipzig responded in the first half through Lukas Klostermann before the home side had Marcel Halstenberg sent off for a second yellow card in the 63rd minute.
In midweek action in the 2.Bundesliga, VfL Osnabrück defeated Greuther Furth to take its point tally to 33 for the season. Osnabrück, competing in the 2.Bundesliga for the first time since 2010-11 after securing promotion last season, is now five points clear of the relegation playoff space with six games left to play.
USMNT player Timmy Chandler helped Eintracht Frankfurt secure a 3-3 draw against Freiburg with an 82nd-minute goal on Tuesday.
Frankfurt had gone down 3-1 before Japanese midfielder Daichi Kamada struck in the 79th minute to bring Die Adler back within one. Soon after, Chandler popped up at the back post to steer home a long cross from Filip Kostic.
As Bayern Munich moved one step closer to an eighth straight Bundesliga title, the world familiarized itself with 19-year-old Canadian phenom Alphonso Davies. One standout moment from Bayern’s victory over Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday was the left back tracking way, way back in a matter of seconds to take the ball off Erling Haaland just as the fellow prodigy shaped to shoot.
So just how fast is Alphonso Davies?
Bayern Munich put itself on the cusp of an eighth straight Bundesliga title after defeating Borussia Dortmund 1-0 at an empty Signal Iduna Park on Tuesday. Joshua Kimmich’s delicate chip just before halftime proved the difference as Bayern opened up a seven-point lead at the top with only six matches remaining.