Halloween is quickly approaching, and due to a peculiarity in the schedule, Bayern Munich will visit Mainz, where they have dropped their last three Bundesliga games, on Matchday 8 to take on one of their nightmare teams.
The top five teams that tend to haunt the record champions Bayern Munich are examined here
Mainz
First, let’s discuss the 05ers. On this chart, Bo Svensson’s team stands out somewhat since, throughout the years, Bayern has defeated Mainz 71 percent of the time in league play, with the Carnival club winning only seven of those encounters.
But considering that four of those triumphs have occurred in the previous 15 league assignments—including wins in each of their last three games at the MEWA Arena—Mainz deserves special recognition. Unbelievably, all three of those latter triumphs have occurred in the last week of April.
On Matchday 29 of the previous season, Mainz overturned a 1-0 deficit in just 14 minutes to put a monkey in the works for Bayern, who were looking to build momentum against Dortmund in the championship fight.
In 2022, Svensson’s team also triumphed 3-1, building on their 2-1 victory the year before. In summary, the Danish strategist has a 60% winning percentage versus Bayern, having managed three victories and two defeats in the Bundesliga. When considered proportionately, that ranks Svensson’s Mainz second all-time among Bayern’s nightmare teams.
Wattenscheid 09
Wattenscheid is at the top of the list in that regard. The Ruhr area club, which is a district of Bochum and is situated west of Dortmund, is best known for having Souleyman, the father of Leroy Sané, on their roster during their four-year run in the Bundesliga from 1990 to 1994.
After securing 11th, 16th, and 14th place results in their first three seasons, they were demoted in their last top-flight campaign, finishing in 17th place. Even though Sané senior and company lost their first matchup with Bayern 7-0, they went on to do something amazing in the years that followed against the formidable Munich team…
Later in the season, they defeated Bayern 3-2, their first of two wins; they also managed three draws, two of which occurred away from home. Because of this, Bayern’s victory percentage overall is only 37.5 percent—the lowest of any team they have played in the Bundesliga.
Fortunately for Bayern, there is little prospect of a reunion anytime soon as Wattenscheid was demoted from the Regionalliga West (fourth tier) the previous season, meaning that a similar ascent from the bottom of the German football pyramid to the top would need an RB Leipzig-like surge.
RB Leipzig
In relation to Leipzig, it is perhaps best to keep their name a secret in Bavaria. As Die Roten Bullen have often made fun of Bayern. Marco Rose’s team has already defeated Thomas Tuchel’s team 3-0 in the DFL Supercup this season. And after taking a 2-0 lead on Matchday 6, they drew 2-2.
With a 3-1 victory in Munich earlier this year and a 1-1 draw at the Red Bull Arena in January. Leipzig has now gone undefeated in their previous four competitive matches against Bayern.
Rose’s comments about “a deserved draw” and “a fair result overall” following that draw may have been telling; they implied that Leipzig was no longer an upstart but rather playing on par with the record champions.
With seven Bundesliga wins from 15 games (46.7 percent win ratio). Bayern still holds the advantage historically, although four of those triumphs came in the first five matches. Leipzig is quickly becoming the biggest thorn in Bayern’s side as they have been holding their own more and more recently.
Borussia Mönchengladbach
But Gladbach now has that title. The Foals were on a historic streak heading into this season’s Matchday 3 match, which Bayern won 2-1 at Borussia-Park. The team had never lost against Munich in five competitive games going into the match. A club record that included three victories and two draws.
It was, in fact, not just a passing fad. But rather a component of a larger trend that stretches back more than ten years. No other team has taken as many points away from Bayern since the 2011–12 season began as Gladbach did (10 victories, 10 losses, and 5 draws).
And that in and of itself was the continuance of a long-standing rivalry that began when Gladbach and Bayern fought it out for supremacy in the home country in the 1970s, during which time Gladbach won all five of their Bundesliga titles.
Bayern has therefore “only” won 46.8% of their 111 Bundesliga meetings with Gladbach. With the Foals winning 28 of those games (with 31 draws).
Borussia Dortmund
Although Gladbach was formerly Bayern’s main opponent, Dortmund has recently come the closest to dethroning them from their position. In fact, they are the only other team that Bayern had a lower than 50% victory rate against.
The greatest run of victories over Bayern dates back to the Jürgen Klopp era. When BVB went on a six-game winning streak that included four straight Bundesliga assignments between October 2010 and April 2012. With a combined scoreline of 9-2. In those seasons, Dortmund memorably won the league title back-to-back.
In 108 league games, Bayern has defeated Dortmund 53 times overall, lost 25 and drawing 30. The last time BVB defeated Bayern in the Bundesliga was on November 10, 2018, a 3-2 victory, five years ago. That percentage, at 49.1%, used to be far lower.
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