For the 1st time in eleven years, barring an unforeseen upset, a club other than FC Bayern Munchen will win the Bundesliga title.  Yes that’s right, Bayern has gone an entire decade straight of being German Champions.  An absolutely remarkable feat, even if the monetary gap between FCB and its domestic challengers has widened significantly over the years.  But indeed the end of an era for FC Hollywood is near, and near is Saturday afternoon when rivals Borussia Dortmund clinch the title with a win at home over Mainz.

The last time a club other than FCB hoisted the Meisterschale was in the 2011-12 season when a Jurgen Klopp led BVB Dortmund finished atop of the Bundesliga table, and that was for a second season in a row, I might add.  Looking back at that team, Klopp had assembled a squad filled with future stars in Robert Lewandowski, Matts Hummels, Ivan Perisic, and Ilkay Gundogan.  In addition, there were many other talented professionals in the side such as club captains Lukasz Piszczek and Marcel Schmelzer, as well as Mario Gotze, Jakub Blaszczykowski, Shinji Kagawa, and the list goes on.

Similar to that 2011-12 team, this current edition of Dortmund appears to have a youthful core of players such as Jude Bellingham, Karim Adeyemi, Youssoufa Moukoko, Gio Reyna, Mateu Morey, Nico Schlotterbeck, and Gregor Kobel.  In addition to this septuplet, BVB features a slew of players in the peak of their primes such as Julian Brandt, Emre Can, Niklas Sule, Raphael Guerreiro, Marius Wolf, and of course, Sebastian Haller.  Lastly, seasoned-veterans Marco Reus and Matts Hummels round out this well balanced squad.

If there is one player that was most instrumental in this title winning triumph for the Black and Yellows, it must be the teenaged sensation Jude Bellingham.  The box-to-box midfielder does it all.  He not only possess the technical and athletic skills of a world class player, but also the mental prowess to be a leader, even at the tender age of 19.  As such, he's officially been designated as Dortmund’s 3rd Captain, behind only the aforementioned Marco Reus (1st Captain, age 34) and Matts Hummels (2nd Captain, age 34).  In addition, Jude isn’t just already an England international, but also an every day starter for the Three Lions.  His contributions were a large part to England’s admirable run in World Cup 2022, losing narrowly to the defending Champions France in the Knockout rounds.  For Dortmund, he embodied the spirit, the will, and the fight of the Yellow Wall.  And as such, he continued to press on, leading BVB from 9 points down in the table, to catching and ultimately surpassing Bayern in the standings.

Unfortunately for Dortmund, this title may be its first and last for awhile, as the club will undoubtedly sell Bellingham on for a fee between $120-150 million to either Real Madrid or Manchester City.  Despite Dortmund having one of the largest fanbases in Europe, and routinely churning out top attendance numbers year-over-year at Signal Iduna Park, the club simply can’t compete monetarily with the likes of Real, Man U, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Bayern, and heck, even somehow $1.5 Billion in debt Barcelona.  And because of this monetary gap, coupled with a perceived disparity in club/league prestige, Dortmund will likely sell on many of the other aforementioned youth starlets in the coming years, same as BVB did with Jadon Sancho, Cristian Pulisic, and Ousmane Dembele in recent memory.  As a result, Dortmund is unlikely to retain the title next season, it’ll be back in Bavaria I’m sure, which is why this title triumph should be held in the highest esteem.  A club, Dortmund, that runs in a financially respectable manor, scouts and recruits the best prospects across the globe, nurtures these young men, developed them into top professionals, and now finally has won a league title before its youthful core gets picked a part one by one from super clubs throughout Europe, should be thoroughly applauded, and it’s players will be immortalized forever in the Rhineland.  This 2022-23 Bundesliga title is truly the triumph of triumphs in today's era of money driven football, as an organic approach was won for the first time in a long time.