By 
Do you hear it yet? The thud of 81,000 heartbeats? The drums, the jangling nerves? The symphony in red and the fearsome Yellow Wall of sound? If you can’t hear it now, you will soon. Because Der Klassiker is coming.
This Saturday, Borussia Dortmund host Bayern München in a clash which will be heard around the world. When two of the Bundesliga’s biggest clubs go head-to-head, the volume is always turned up to eleven. This is Der Klassiker: the biggest fixture in German football, played out in one of the world’s greatest sporting arenas. It’s heat. It’s colour. And above all: it’s noise.
As heated rivalries go, you don’t get much hotter than this. Saturday’s game will be the 111th time the two clubs have met each other in the Bundesliga, and the emotions of this tie run as deep as its roots. For all their familiarity, Bayern and Dortmund have always represented two very different sides of German football. On the one hand: the swashbuckling elegance of regal Bavaria. On the other: the earthy energy of the coalmining Ruhr.
More often than not, that is a recipe for fireworks. In recent years, this clash has decided title races, defined careers, and broken hearts as beloved players on both sides, like Robert Lewandowski, Mario Götze and Mats Hummels, switched allegiances between yellow and red, turning heroes into villains. For the fans, this fixture is always a chance to settle old scores, bury past traumas and restore wounded pride. In this game, it is always all or nothing.
When they line up at the Signal-Iduna-Park on Saturday, both sets of players will be feeling the heat of history. Some, like Thomas Müller and Niklas Süle, are seasoned Klassiker campaigners who are used to the roar of this particular furnace. Others, like Dortmund’s Serhou Guirassy and Bayern’s Michael Olise, are preparing to face the music for the first time.
This, after all, is also a new era for the old rivalry. After losing their grip on the Bundesliga title for the first time in over a decade last season, Bayern are on a mission to re-establish themselves as the Bundesliga’s top dogs under new coach Vincent Kompany. At Dortmund, club legend Nuri Sahin is out to build a long-term legacy after taking over as head coach in the summer.
Sahin already knows what it takes to win this fixture. As a player, he inspired Dortmund to a famous 3-1 win in Munich back in 2011, a crucial step on the road to the domestic double and a highlight of the club’s golden era under Jürgen Klopp. By contrast, this will be Kompany’s first Klassiker, a first foray into the roaring flames of yellow and red. With the world watching, both men know that this game could set the narrative for the rest of their respective debut seasons.
The trick, then, is to block out the noise. But in this game of all games, that is easier said than done. With half a million ticket requests registered for Saturday’s game, Dortmund could have filled the Signal-Iduna-Park six times over. As it is, the famous old “temple of football” will be fit to burst with 81,365 fans: and none of them will be watching quietly.
This, after all, is one of world football’s greatest and loudest cauldrons, a stadium where noise levels can reach up to 130 decibels. From the first sizzle of a stadium bratwurst to the full-blooded chorus of You’ll Never Walk Alone on the 20,000-strong Yellow Wall, the sounds of this Saturday can mean only one thing. It’s Dortmund vs. Bayern. It’s der Klassiker. And it’s time to bring the noise.
