Is a Record 5th Straight Bundesliga Title an Inevitability for Bayern Munich?

Four games into the Bundesliga season and Carlo Ancelotti’s Bayern Munich are already the only team in the league with a 100 percent record.

Following their 3-0 victory over Hertha Berlin at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday, the Bavarians have opened up a three-point cushion on their nearest challengers Cologne—a team who last won the league in 1978.

“Englische Woche”—a term used in German football to describe a run of fixtures that includes midweek games, as in England; a bout of gastroenteritis that afflicted captain Philipp Lahm and others; an opponent on Wednesday who looked worthy of their place alongside Bayern at the top of the pile after dismissing Schalke 04 2-0 on Sunday: none of it mattered.

The Reds barely moved out of second gear against the capital club, yet they still coasted to victory with Franck Ribery, Thiago Alcantara and Arjen Robben finding the target in front of 75,000 mostly ecstatic fans.

Attended my first FC Bayern Munchen game tonight and it was as spectacular as I had hoped European football matches were. Great atmosphere! pic.twitter.com/o0ZDgzYxhQ

— Justin Newcom (@jnewco3) September 21, 2016

Hertha could have gone top with victory, but the Old Lady had not won in Munich since 1977. They will now have to wait until next season to attempt to end that 39-year drought unless the sides are drawn together in the latter stages of the DFB-Pokal.

Hertha were without three of their most important players in United States stalwart John Anthony Brooks, Czech midfield engine Vladimir Darida and Ivorian striker Salomon Kalou, so their defeat should be taken with a pinch of salt.

However, it seems pertinent to question who might challenge the Bavarians if a Hertha side—even slightly depleted—can be so easily brushed aside.

Bayern rarely look over their shoulders at what their opponents are doing these days, but there is rightly excitement at what is happening at Signal Iduna Park this season.

Runners-up last term, Borussia Dortmund collected 78 points in the 2015-16 campaign—a haul that would have been sufficient to win them the Bundesliga title in all but four of the competition’s 52 completed incarnations to date.

Last season’s first Der Klassiker—the German term for the meeting between Bayern and Dortmund—saw the Reds prevail 5-1. However, between that thrashing and the return fixture, a 0-0 draw in Dortmund in March, BVB actually picked up more points than the champions, before …

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