RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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DORTMUND, GERMANY - AUGUST 22: Michael Olise of Bayern Munich celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup match between Borussia Dortmund and FC Bayern München at Signal Iduna Park on August 22, 2026 in Dortmund, Germany. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Bayern Munich edged past Borussia Dortmund 2-1 to win the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup on the back of goals from Nathaniel Brown and Michael Olise, even though Fábio Silva scored to reduce the arrears late on. Here are some observations from Bayern’s first competitive match of the season:
The rust was evident
Though it is natural as a Bayern fan to jump into the season with glee and fully anticipate the wonderful football the Bavarians played last season after such a long summer break, it takes time for the team to shake off the rust, achieve full match fitness again and rediscover the mechanisms built over the course of the season. It is not all going to come back in the very first game. This was very much evident in an imperfect display from both Beckenbauer Supercup finalists. And yet…
Bayern outclassed Dortmund in first half
Somehow, the venue of the Supercup was set to be the Signal Iduna Park, Dortmund’s home stadium, turning this match into a Dortmund home game and a chance for last season’s Bundesliga runner ups to send a signal to the rest of the Bundesliga: This Bayern team can be beaten. Armed with multiple intriguing new faces and their 80,000+ fans behind them, Dortmund set out to make a point.
The first 45 minutes saw them make the wrong one, though.
Dortmund failed to register a single shot on target as Bayern scored twice and could have had more goals. The home team showed too little initiative, instead allowing the Bavarians to camp out in their half and set their goal under siege. Bayern may have lined up with a makeshift solution at the #10 position in Brown because Lennart Karl, Serge Gnabry and Jamal Musiala were unavailable for the game (and Ismael Saibari was presumably not fit to play the entire 90 minutes), but Dortmund could not use that to their advantage.
Meanwhile Bayern were still fighting their rust, Brown scored a goal, showed a lot of promise but put in an ultimately inconsistent performance while Michael Olise and Harry Kane showed that this was their first start since the World Cup. But they still registered 11 shots, created many chances and looked multiple levels above their rivals. The goal from Olise just before half time was supposed to signal a comfortable end to the match for the Bavarians.
But Dortmund grew in the second half
One can assume Niko Kovač gave his team the hairdryer treatment during half time, because they put pressure on Bayern from the off. It was far from perfect and, too often, their attacks ended with poor technical execution. But they made Bayern sweat more in the opening period of the second half than they did in the first half. And they never really went away.
While Bayern visibly took their foot off the gas, Dortmund stayed in the match despite the deficit, always working to try and cut the gap. Both teams exchanged huge chances before Dortmund finally got their goal in the 75th minute through Silva’s goal. Bayern will be frustrated, having had chance after chance to put the game to bed previously. Olise, despite his goal, was especially culpable of wasting some good openings.
This season will be similar to last season
Though it was an up and down match and both teams were fighting the rust, it was clear Bayern were doing many of the same things they did last season. Most, if not all, of the strengths of last season were very apparent: The automatisms, the patterns of play, the outrageous technical quality, the control on the ball from midfield, the high line, Kane’s raking long passes, it was all there.
Unfortunately, the same issues seem to exist as well. Bayern failed to calm the game down once Dortmund got a foothold again and lost the ball in silly ways. Joshua Kimmich and Manuel Neuer were especially at fault for that. The team also experienced lapses in concentration, Dortmund’s f0rwards found too much space too often behind Bayern’s full backs and a lack of midfield cover to help out compounded it all. It was nothing terrible and Bayern still emerged with the win, but on another day this kind of defensive performance could have been bad.
The 2025/26 season was the Bavarians’ most successful season in six years. And it is important to capture all the strengths of the last season again. Yet a repeat will not be deemed good enough. The assignment for Bayern this season is to build on what came before. This performance did not seem to add too much, but the season is still so young. For now, it is enough to celebrate a hard earned victory over a rival.
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