Guerreiro, Lewandowski, Götze, Hummels, Sammer and Hitzfeld: 6 people who represented Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund
What do Raphael Guerreiro, Mario Götze and Mats Hummels have in common, apart from being world-class footballers? They have all donned the colours of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
bundesliga.com looks back at some of the biggest names to have crossed the Klassiker divide - often more than once...
So entwined with Bayern’s recent success was Lewandowski that his efforts at Dortmund are sometimes overlooked. Not by the Black and Yellow faithful, however, who were left heartbroken when the Pole moved to Bavaria on a free transfer in 2014 after four years in a Dortmund shirt. Lewandowski won back-to-back Bundesliga titles with the Black-Yellows between 2010 and 2012, made it a domestic double with the DFB Cup in 2011/12 and was part of the BVB outfit that lost 2-1 to Bayern in the 2012/13 UEFA Champions League final - the first all-German European showpiece to date.
Lewandowski ended his spell at Dortmund with a record of 103 goals in 187 appearances; a fine return that now looks ordinary considering his Bayern exploits. The 35-year-old went on to bag 344 goals in 375 games in all competitions for Bayern, becoming the Bundesliga’s greatest foreign-born goalscorer and has more goals than any other player at his home for the previous eight seasons, the Allianz Arena. Six Bundesliga top-scorer cannons followed in Munich, as did a further eight league crowns, the Champions League and two Best FIFA Men's Player gongs. And Lewy is clearly not one for sentiment, having scored 23 times in 16 Bundesliga matches for Bayern against his old employers.
Watch: All 312 Lewandowski goals for Bayern and Dortmund in the Bundesliga
Another member of that famed Jürgen Klopp side that last paraded Bundesliga glory in front of the Yellow Wall, Götze became - at the time - the most expensive German footballer in history when he swapped Dortmund for Bayern just months after featuring alongside Lewandowski in the Champions League defeat at Wembley. Having come through the Dortmund youth setup, Götze moved to a Bayern side that had just recruited Pep Guardiola as head coach and was beginning arguably the most successful period in its rich history.
Three more Bundesliga titles followed at Bayern - taking his tally to five - before, in the summer of 2014, Götze brought delight to Germany fans irrespective of club allegiances by scoring the winning goal in the FIFA World Cup final. By the start of the 2016/17 season, Götze was back at Dortmund and hoping to wrestle domestic glory back to the club that handed him his professional debut. "I want to try to win everyone over – especially those who do not welcome me back with open arms – with my performances," said Götze on his return to Dortmund. Despite various health complications, a fourth DFB Cup trophy and maiden Supercup followed, before he left Germany for PSV Eindhoven in summer 2020. He returned with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2022.
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Hummels has hopped the fence a number of times and is now partnered by one of the most recent switchers - Niklas Süle - at centre-back. The experienced defender has spent the entirety of both his youth and professional career either at Bayern or Dortmund. Having come through the ranks as a youngster in Munich, Hummels made just one senior appearance for the club before being initially loaned to Borussia in January 2008. He clearly impressed, and BVB made the deal permanent 18 months later. Hummels would go on to form the backbone of the same Klopp side that Lewandowski and Götze were propelling at the other end before following in their footsteps and heading down south at the end of his Dortmund deal in July 2016.
Hummels claimed three successive Bundesliga titles, the DFB Cup and three Supercups on his return to his boyhood club, swelling his appearance count in the red of Bayern to 118. Not content with being rotated in and out following the emergence of Süle, however, he took his search for regular first-team football back to Dortmund, re-joining the Ruhr district giants in summer 2019. Now 35, he's played in Der Klassiker 39 times - 30 against Bayern - and has made 361 Bundesliga appearances for Die Schwarzgelben. On 497 games all told for the club, he's only behind Michael Zorc (572) in the BVB all-time standings. Zorc is the only other player to have appeared in 28 Bundesliga encounters between Bayern and Dortmund. Hummels could now claim the Klassiker record outright...
Matthias Sammer
A veritable, full-blown Dortmund legend, Sammer has Hall of Fame status at the Signal Iduna Park. The 56-year-old unlocked the legendary achievement at the club as both player and coach; winning back-to-back Bundesliga medals in the 1994/95 and 1995/96 seasons, as well as captaining Dortmund to their historic Champions League victory in 1996/97. It was a remarkable period for the libero, Dortmund and German football as Sammer was also named both Player of the Tournament and the 1996 Ballon d’Or winner as Germany went on to win UEFA Euro 96.
After retiring in 1998, Sammer was back at Dortmund - but this time in the dugout - just two years later, and success was almost immediate. Sammer led his beloved BVB to Bundesliga glory in 2001/02 and the same year were narrowly beaten finalists in the UEFA Cup. To the surprise of many, Sammer wound up at Bayern 10 years later as their sporting director, charged with bringing an end to the Dortmund dominance that the three players above had instigated. And, boy, did Sammer do just that, leading Bayern to the first treble in their history one year into the job and instigating the raid on Dortmund that saw Lewandowski and Götze join the Sammer revolution. A total of five Bundesliga titles followed, before Sammer brought an end to his Bayern days. He is now back at Dortmund as an external advisor to the club.
Hitzfeld made no mark on either club as a player but has most certainly left an enormous stamp in his image on both illustrious histories from the dugout. Hitzfeld first arrived back in Germany as a coach at Dortmund in 1991, and it was under Hitzfeld that the likes of Sammer, Zorc, Karl-Heinz Riedle and Lars Ricken inspired Dortmund’s dominance of the mid-90s. Hitzfeld would take charge of Borussia for 273 matches over the course of six seasons at the club, winning 149 of those games in the process.
His spell at Dortmund came to an end in 1998 after spending his final year as director of football before taking the reins at Bayern. In what would become the first of two stints in Munich, Hitzfeld inspired the record champions to four league titles, two DFB Cups and one Champions League triumph across six seasons in charge. In February 2007 - three years after leaving Bayern - Hitzfeld was back in Munich, this time at the new surrounds of the Allianz Arena. By the time he left 18 months later, the Lörrach native had added one more Bundesliga and DFB Cup apiece to the newly minted trophy cabinet before waving goodbye to Bayern after 395 matches as boss, a whopping 244 wins and a club record 14 trophies.
Injury limited Guerreiro to just one appearance for the Bavarian giants prior to the season's first Klassiker after his decision to cross the divide. The versatile defender has now started to prove just why Bayern wanted to keep him in the Bundesliga after over 200 appearances for Dortmund.
The Portugual international said following his summer 2023 move: "I’ll give my all so that we win as many titles as possible; that’s the philosophy of FC Bayern." The 30-year-old will at the very least want to get one over his former club at the Allianz Arena.
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