Müller's Klassiker history | OneFootball

Thomas Müller's Klassiker history with Bayern Munich

Following Thomas Müller's Klassiker with Bayern Munich against Borussia Dortmund on Matchday 29, we take a look back at his 17-year history in the biggest fixture on Germany’s football calendar.

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Müller's Klassiker debut came in September 2009, and boy was it a memorable one.

With Jürgen Klinsmann at the helm, Bayern prevailed 5-1 at Signal Iduna Park, thanks in part to a brace from half-time substitute Müller, who registered his first two goals in the Bundesliga.

The second of those two strikes was particularly eye-catching, as Bayern’s new star hammered the ball into the top corner from the edge of the box. That may have been the best goal he scored versus BVB, but it was certainly not the last.

Müller played the full 90 minutes of the reverse fixture in 2009/10, a 3-1 win for Bayern, yet that proved to be his last taste of Klassiker success for the next three years.

Led by Jürgen Klopp, Dortmund emerged as the kings of Germany, winning back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 2011 and 2012. In five fixtures between the two teams in 2010/11 and 2011/12 (not including Supercup matches), Dortmund triumphed on each occasion, including in the 2012 DFB Cup final. Müller did not muster a goal in any of those games.

Bayern ended that losing streak in the 2012/13 DFB Cup quarter-final, but it was the next Klassiker, the final game of that campaign, that Müller will remember most fondly.

Having lost the 2012 UEFA Champions League final on home turf to Chelsea, in which Müller scored the opener before Didier Drogba’s late equaliser, Bayern had an immediate chance at redemption 12 months later against Dortmund at Wembley. In a tense affair, Munich narrowly edged out Klopp and Co. thanks to a late Arjen Robben winner to end a 12-year wait for European glory and complete the treble.

That result turned the tide. In the 29 Bundesliga and cup Klassikers since that London evening, Bayern have lost just six times. Müller, meanwhile, has missed just three of those games and scored eight goals to take his overall tally to 14.

He was especially prolific in the eight Supercups the teams played out, finding the back of the net four times, while he was also on the scoresheet in the 2014 cup showpiece that Bayern won 2-0.

Müller's eight-goal Bundesliga Klassiker haul is enough to put him fourth on the all-time list behind legends Robert Lewandowski, Gerd Müller and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. Furthermore, the 2014 FIFA World Cup winner leads the way for more Bundesliga victories against Dortmund as a Bayern player than anyone else with 16.

A starter on Saturday evening, he moved level with Mats Hummels on 29 Klassiker appearances, the joint record. Lewandowski, thanks to his spell in the Ruhr, has 18 Bundesliga Klassiker wins overall, meaning Müller couldn't close the gap before his tear-jerking exit. However, the Bayern all-time great marked his Klassiker swansong by setting up Raphaël Guerreiro to get Bayern on the scoreboard in a memorable 2-2 draw and the point won should go some way to helping Müller clinch his 13th Meisterschale - another all-time best.

And so Müller made his mark on Der Klassiker, the annals of which are littered with his name.

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