"Modern football hype prefers it when we place everything in a convenient box that doesn't always reflect reality. I suppose it's understandable. Covering the German game as a commentator, however, you quickly resist the temptation to make Bayern Munich vs. Borussia Dortmund what advertising moguls might have us do with a fixture that has come to be known as der Klassiker. It doesn't lend itself to a simplistic "clash of the titans" narrative. Nuance and context are needed when understanding what this confrontation is."
"Yes, it is the most-high profile Bundesliga fixture that the wider world often associates with the league and it features two heavyweight clubs, indeed the two most avidly followed in the Bundesrepublik. The action -- as was the case last season in a pair of thrilling score draws -- can be highly absorbing in front of some of the largest crowds in the world and offers a window into who is currently the best team in Germany."
"However, this is not the German rivalry to end all rivalries along the lines of Real Madrid against Barcelona, Celtic vs. Rangers or Galatasaray against Fenerbahce. Nor should we pretend it is. Bayern fans simply don't obsess on a weekly Schadenfreude basis over BVB, and the same is true of those of a schwarzgelb persuasion with regard to the Rekordmeister."
Modern football hype often reduces complex fixtures into neat labels that can misrepresent reality. Commentators avoid simplifying Bayern Munich vs Borussia Dortmund into an advertiser-friendly spectacle called der Klassiker. The matchup resists a 'clash of the titans' narrative and requires nuance and context. It stands as the Bundesliga's most high-profile fixture internationally, featuring two heavyweight, widely followed clubs and offering insight into which team currently leads German football. The encounter produces absorbing matches before vast crowds but does not carry the obsessive, weekly animus of historic derbies. The rivalry grew in the 1990s under Ottmar Hitzfeld and peaked during Jürgen Klopp's Dortmund era with 2011 and 2012 titles.
Read at ESPN.com
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