LEVERKUSEN, Germany: Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich were held to a 2-2 home draw with Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, failing to take advantage of Bayer Leverkusen’s slip-up earlier in the day.
After defending champions Leverkusen were held to a 0-0 draw at home to Union Berlin, Bayern knew a win would have moved them eight points clear with five games to play.
Dortmund took the lead through Maximilian Beier in the 48th minute but Bayern hit back with two goals in four minutes, before Waldemar Anton equalized for the visitors with 15 minutes remaining.
“We’ve moved a step closer to the championship and we’ve shown we can create plenty of opportunities,” said Bayern veteran Thomas Mueller, who will leave the club after 25 years at the end of the season.
“That should help us in the Champions League on Wednesday,” Mueller added of next week’s Champions League quarter-final second leg at Inter Milan, with Bayern facing a 2-1 first-leg deficit,
“(We need) to be more clinical,” said Harry Kane. “We’ll have opportunities, it’s about taking them in the right moments.”
Usually the standout fixture on the German football calendar, the buzz around the match was comparatively muted.
The visitors, who trail Barcelona 4-0 in their Champions League quarter-final, arrived in Munich sitting nine spots and 27 points behind in the table.
Bayern, enduring an injury crisis, were camped out near Dortmund’s box for almost the entire first half.
Visiting goalkeeper Gregor Kobel needed to snuff out big chances for Kane and Michael Olize.
Seemingly on the ropes at half-time, Dortmund opened the scoring three minutes into the second period, Beier heading between Bayern goalkeeper Jonas Urbig’s legs to finish off a counter-attack.
With Dortmund in the ascendancy and probing for a second, Kompany brought on Serge Gnabry and the move worked a treat.
The former Arsenal winger created the equalizer for former Dortmund midfielder Raphael Guerreiro on 65 minutes and then scored a goal of his own four minutes later, slaloming through the visiting defense before hammering home.
Dortmund hit back to level again when Anton knocked in a rebound from a Serhou Guirassy shot.
Bayern remain six points ahead of Leverkusen and closing in on regaining the title.
Nursing an ongoing Achilles injury, Bayern center-back Kim Min-jae was substituted in the second half, leaving the Bavarians with just one fit central defender.
Despite welcoming back star midfielder Florian Wirtz from a foot injury, Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen lacked fluency in attack, carving out few clear-cut opportunities against Union Berlin.
Wirtz came on after 57 minutes and despite giving his side an initial boost, was unable to break down Union’s defense.
Granit Xhaka had a free-kick from the edge of the box in stoppage time but blasted his shot well over the bar.
“We’re dropping too many points at home,” Leverkusen captain Hradecky said.
“Mathematically there’s a small chance (of defending the title), but the probability has decreased.”
The draw continues a poor April for last season’s unbeaten domestic double winners, who were eliminated from the German Cup semifinals by third-division Arminia Bielefeld.
The draw lifted Union to 34 points, 12 clear of the relegation play-off spot.
The Berliners have taken 11 points from an unbeaten five-game run against Leverkusen, Bayern, Eintracht Frankfurt, Freiburg and Wolfsburg.
Borussia Moenchengladbach’s hopes of returning to the Champions League took a hit with a 2-1 home loss to Freiburg.
Freiburg snatched all three points when Johan Manzambi scored a 90th-minute header, allowing the visitors to leapfrog their opponents into sixth.
Augsburg continued their strong 2025 with a 2-1 win at lowly Bochum, climbing past Dortmund into eighth. Augsburg have only lost one of their past 13 games.
Elsewhere, Hoffenheim took a step toward beating the drop with a 2-0 home win over Champions League hopefuls Mainz, with Andrej Kramaric scoring a brace.
St. Pauli also boosted their hopes of top-division football next season with a 2-1 win over fellow promoted side Holstein Kiel.
Bayern fail to make most of Leverkusen slip with Dortmund draw
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Bayern fail to make most of Leverkusen slip with Dortmund draw
- Dortmund took the lead through Maximilian Beier in the 48th minute but Bayern hit back with two goals in four minutes, before Waldemar Anton equalized for the visitors with 15 minutes remaining
Sabalenka to skip events in 2026 to prioritize her health
- “The season is definitely insane, and that’s not good for all of us, as you see so many players getting injured“
Aryna Sabalenka expects to skip events again this year rather than put her health at risk over the course of an “insane” season, even though she knows she is likely to be sanctioned by the WTA Tour for doing so, the world number one said.
Top players are obliged to compete in all four Grand Slams, 10 WTA 1000 tournaments and six WTA 500 events under WTA rules, with the punishment for missing them ranging from rankings points deductions to fines.
In 2025, Sabalenka competed in just three WTA 500 events — Brisbane, Stuttgart and Berlin — making her one of a number of high-ranked players, including world number two Iga Swiatek, to be docked ranking points.
Asked if she would change her plans for 2026, the four-times Grand Slam champion told reporters: “The season is definitely insane, and that’s not good for all of us, as you see so many players getting injured ...
“The rules are quite tricky with mandatory events, but I’m still skipping a couple events in order to protect my body, because I struggled a lot last season,” the Belarusian said after beating Sorana Cirstea at the Brisbane International.
“Even though the results were really consistent, some of the tournaments I had been playing completely sick or I’ve been really exhausted from overplaying. This season we will try to manage it a little bit better, even though they are going to fine me by the end of the season.
“But it’s tricky to do that. You cannot skip 1000 events. It’s really tricky, and I think that’s insane what they do. I think they just follow their interests, but they’re not focusing on protecting all of us.”
The men’s and women’s circuits have faced criticism due to their 11-month seasons, and both tours came under fresh scrutiny during the “Asian swing” toward the end of last year with injuries piling up.
In September, the WTA told Reuters that athlete welfare is a top priority and that it had listened to views on the calendar, both through the players’ council and their representatives on the WTA board, to improve the circuit structure in 2024 and boost compensation.
