Niko Kovač congratulates Maximilian Beier after his late winner against Eintracht Frankfurt. © IMAGO/Bahho Kara
Borussia Dortmund earn morale-boosting win ahead of Der Klassiker against Bayern Munich
Dortmund’s 1-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt matters beyond the three points. The performance wasn’t spotless, and the team had to ride its luck, but a late winner gives Niko Kovač’s squad a lift before a demanding week capped by a trip to Bayern Munich.
Maximilian Beier settled Saturday’s match at Signal Iduna Park with a powerful drive in the 80th minute. The result ended a run of successive Bundesliga draws against Werder Bremen and Union Berlin. That’s a welcome change in direction; the timing makes it more useful still.
Dortmund meet Werder Bremen again in the second round of the DFB Cup on Tuesday. Then comes a visit to Bayern Munich for the first Bundesliga Klassiker of the 2026/27 season. A confidence boost ahead of that fixture is useful, even if one narrow win doesn’t answer every question about Dortmund’s form.
Watch: Playmobil meets Der Klassiker
The win follows a midweek victory over Azerbaijan’s Sabah in the UEFA Champions League. That came six days after Dortmund lost 1-0 at Bodø/Glimt. The recent results have swung sharply; it’s not yet clear whether this is a sustained recovery, but the squad’s mood appears to be improving.
“It was a lot of fun tonight,” Nico Schlotterbeck told Sky Germany. “We didn’t give anything away in the second half. If we had survived the final two minutes against Bremen, we would have won six of our first seven league games, which is really good.”
Schlotterbeck was also clear-eyed about the work ahead: “We’re not playing as well as we can at the moment, but we’re improving. We’re heading to Bayern next week and want to put in a good performance there too.”
Dortmund’s lead could be brief
Dortmund’s narrow Saturday win put BVB back on top of the Bundesliga, ahead of the champions. The table is provisional: Bayern have a game in hand, and Sunday’s trip to Julian Schuster’s Freiburg is a stiff test. Freiburg are third, just one point behind Bayern. Last April, Bayern needed three late goals to turn a 2-0 deficit at the Europa-Park Stadion into a 3-2 win over Freiburg (match report and highlights).
That makes the next few days unusually consequential. If Bayern drop points, Dortmund will travel to the Allianz Arena next weekend as league leaders—a position they haven’t held going into a Klassiker since Matchday 26 of 2022/23. The standings are available here.
Beier gives Dortmund another way to win
For Niko Kovač, Saturday’s result also offered a lift after three difficult away games. “We’re obviously hoping for a repeat [result] in the coming days,” he said after Dortmund beat his former employers. “After three tough away games, it meant a lot to me to see us beat a strong footballing side tonight. Those are the positives we’ll take from this game.”
One of those positives is having Maximilian Beier ready to make an impact. The 24-year-old has often played out of position this season, yet he keeps appearing at decisive moments. Last month he scored the only goal in a hard-fought win at VfB Stuttgart. Against Frankfurt, his curling shot into the top corner past Noah Atubolu was among the weekend’s standout goals.
Watch: Dortmund 1-0 Frankfurt
Beier told Sky that he practices those shots regularly in training and is pleased when they go in. His advice is simple: “Believing in yourself [in those situations] is the most important thing. If you don’t, you won’t get anything out of them.”
Dortmund now have two chances to turn that confidence into something bigger: a step toward the DFB Cup final in Berlin, then a shot at Bayern in Matchday 8. Beier’s form gives them a useful weapon. Whether it’s enough to keep them above Bayern depends first on Freiburg.