After 25 matches played, Borussia Dortmund is in first place in the standings, with 53 points, one more than Bayern (52), ten-time defending champions and who travel to Bayer Leverkusen (9th, 34 points) on Sunday (17:30).

After the ten-day international break, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern will meet on Saturday, April 1 (18:30) at the Allianz Arena in Munich for a decisive Klassiker in the race for the league title, with only eight days left after this Bundesliga clash.

On Saturday, Edin Terzic's players shattered the Cologne defence by scoring four goals in the space of twenty minutes between the 15th and 36th.

It was first the Portuguese Raphaël Guerreiro, defender repositioned for the occasion in midfield, who opened the scoring, served by Donyell Malen, author of a small bridge on the defender of Cologne Jeff Chabot.

Then on a magnificent sequence between Jude Bellingham, Marco Reus, Guerreiro and Sebastien Haller, the Ivorian international doubled the bet.

After half an hour of play, Reus scored his 159th goal for Borussia Dortmund, becoming the club's second-highest scorer behind Alfred Preissler's 177 in the 1940s and 1950s.

Doubles for Haller and Reus

Malen took part in the offensive festival of the Yellow and Black, with a strike that Cologne goalkeeper Marvin Schwäbe could only deflect.

© INA FASSBENDER / AFP

Dortmund's demonstration continued in the second half, with classy gestures, such as a Bellingham roulette just before the hour mark, and the doubles of Haller (69th) and Reus (70th), to the delight of the 81,365 spectators of the Westfalenstadion.

Marco Reus' teammates are still unbeaten in 2023 in the Bundesliga, with nine wins to a single draw, a streak that allows them to dream of the title again before the last quarter of the season.

In the middle of the afternoon, RB Leipzig made a bad operation by bowing on the lawn of the poorly ranked Bochum. Four days after the debacle in the Champions League on the lawn of Manchester City (7-0), Leipzig stagnates in 3rd place with 45 points.

Marco Rose's men, tied on points with Union Berlin and Freiburg, find themselves at the mercy of a victory or a draw in Berlin against Frankfurt (Sunday, 15:30) or Freiburg in Mainz (Sunday, 19:30) to lose their place on the podium.

"Every point is important, every win is important, every away game is important, regardless of the opponent. We have to look forward. The championship is not over yet, the Cup is coming too," RB Leipzig goalkeeper Janis Blaswich said after the game at the microphone of broadcaster Sky.

© 2023 AFP