Xabi Alonso (c.) celebrates after guiding Bayer Leverkusen to the UEFA Europa League final, just two days after Borussia Dortmund booked their place in the UEFA Champions League showpiece. - © INA FASSBENDER

bundesliga

Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen take German clubs into two major European finals

10.05.2024

Fans of German football will have the pleasure of seeing both Borussia Dortmund Bayer Leverkusen vie for European glory this season, something these two teams both also managed in 2002.

Dortmund booked their place in the Champions League final on Tuesday, winning 1-0 home and away to knock out Paris Saint-Germain.

With this year's tournament also culminating in a showdown at Wembley Stadium - the same venue where Bayern Munich beat Dortmund to the trophy in 2013 - there was a potential of the 2012/13 Klassiker final. Thomas Tuchel's team were left heartbroken, though, by a late turnaround from Real Madrid which denied us an all-German rerun in London.

Watch: Borussia Dortmund one win from Champions League glory

There is another German club in a European final, however. Boasting a 2-0 first-leg lead over Roma in their Europa League semi-final, Leverkusen - as has become customary with Xabi Alonso's team - left it late to secure safe passage to the final courtesy of a 4-2 aggregate win.

The newly crowned Bundesliga champions - who will also contest this year's DFB Cup final - extended their unbeaten run to a European record 49 matches by coming from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 in their second meeting with Roma. Josip Stanišić was the last-gasp hero this time around, popping up in the 97th-minute to keep the club's unbeaten streak alive as they go in search of a historic treble.

It means Leverkusen will face another Italian outfit, Atalanta, in the Europa League final on 22 May in Dublin, just 10 days before Dortmund take on Jude Bellingham's Real on 1 June to decide this year's Champions League winner.

Watch: Bayer Leverkusen: No More Neverkusen

While that all-German UCL showdown was denied us, it's not the first time German clubs have simultaneously reach European finals in the same season. In fact, it will be the sixth time they have done so in the European Cup/Champions League and UEFA Cup/Europa League, and the eighth in total that there have been two German finalists in UEFA competition at the end of a single campaign.

The last such occasion came in 2002, when its was Leverkusen who were defeated by Real in the Champions League and Dortmund came up short against Feyenoord in the UEFA Cup. Leverkusen have exercised the demons of that 2001/02 campaign already by lifting the Meisterschale and, having dropped the treble back then, are now looking to finally shake that heartbreaking season by becoming treble winners in 2023/24.

There have been success stories down the years, though. Revierderby rivals Dortmund and Schalke were Champions League and UEFA Cup winners, respectively in 1997, while Bayern and Borussia Mönchengladbach did the same in 1975.

Dortmund last won the Champions League in 1997, the same year their Revierderby rivals Schalke lifted the UEFA Cup. - IMAGO/SVEN SIMON/IMAGO/Sven Simon

Further European Cup and UEFA Cup runs to the finals were made in 1980 and 1982, with the former the first time two German clubs faced off for a continental cup. That time around, it was Eintracht Frankfurt who emerged victorious over Gladbach on away goals, with the two-legged nature and end result both signs of their times.

Including the now defunct Cup Winners' Cup, there were two German teams in European finals in 1977 and 1979, with Hamburg claiming CWC glory in the former campaign and Gladbach winning the European Cup in the latter.