By beating Leipzig 2-1 last Friday, Borussia Dortmund equalled the club record for the most Bundesliga wins in a row. It was their eighth league victory in succession.

Such a long run has only previously been achieved twice in the club’s history. There were eight consecutive wins between 17/12/2022 (4-1 versus Freiburg) and 3/3/2012 (2-1 against Mainz) under Jürgen Klopp in the 2011/2012 campaign. Then there was another such run spread across two seasons, starting with a 3-2 win away to VfB Stuttgart on 10/04/2021 and ending with a 5-2 victory over Frankfurt on 14/08/2021. Seven wins in that run came under Edin Terzic, while the eighth came during Marco Rose’s tenure.

There have been two other wins during the current run of eight Bundesliga victories in a row: 2-1 away to VfL Bochum in the DFB-Pokal and the 1-0 first leg victory over Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League. That means that BVB have won 10 matches on the bounce across all competitions. The club record for competitive wins in a row stands at 11 and was set in the 2015/16 campaign.

The season beforehand, the team had worked its way up from 18th to seventh place in the league table but then lost the cup final against Wolfsburg – the final match of the Jürgen Klopp era – 3-1 on 30 May 2015 and missed out on an automatic qualification spot for the UEFA Europa League as a result.

That meant that BVB and their new coach Thomas Tuchel had to enter the qualifying rounds at the beginning of the 2015/16 season and started the competition with a 1-0 win against Wolfsberger AC in Klagenfurt on 30 July 2015. The 5-0 in the return leg was followed by a 2-0 victory over third-tier Chemnitzer FC in the DFB-Pokal first round. In the UEFA Europa League group-stage play-offs, they faced Norwegian opposition in the form of Odds Ballklubb.

Four wins in UEFA Europa League qualifiers, one at the start of the group stages, the aforementioned victory in the first round of the DFB-Pokal and five victories from the first five matchdays in the Bundesliga made for a run of 11 competitive wins up until 20/09/2015. The winning streak ended three days later with a 1-1 draw in Hoffenheim.

2015/16 – 11 wins in a row

1 Th. 30/07/15 Wolfsberger AC A 1-0 UEL 3rd qualifying round
2 Th. 06/08/15 Wolfsberger AC H 5-0 UEL 3rd qualifying round
3 Su. 09/08/15 Chemnitzer FC A 2-0 DFB-Pokal 1st round
4 Sa. 15/08/15 Bor. M’gladbach H 4-0 Bundesliga
5 Th. 20/08/15 Odds BK A 4-3 UEL play-off
6 Su. 23/08/15 FC Ingolstadt 04 A 4-0 Bundesliga
7 Th. 27/08/15 Odds BK H 7-2 UEL play-off
8 Su. 30/08/15 Hertha BSC H 3-1 Bundesliga
9 Sa. 12/09/15 Hannover 96 A 4-2 Bundesliga
10 Th. 17/09/15 FK Krasnodar H 2-1 UEL group stages
11 Su. 20/09/15 Bayer Leverkusen H 3-0 Bundesliga
  We. 23/09/15 TSG Hoffenheim A 1-1 Bundesliga

Borussia Dortmund can equal the club record for consecutive competitive victories if they win at Stamford Bridge this evening. But the runs cannot be compared directly. The latest 10 wins in a row have come against nine Bundesliga clubs and one Premier League club….
Boris Rupert