Dortmund have won all four, and they are top of the Bundesliga for the first time since 2023

Maximilian Beier turned Jobe Bellingham’s low cross into an empty-ish net in the 70th minute at the MHPArena on Saturday, and by the time the whistle went Borussia Dortmund were top of the Bundesliga for the first time since May 2023.

Four games, four wins, twelve points

Stuttgart 0, Dortmund 1 does not sound like much of a statement. The table says otherwise. Niko Kovac’s side have now won all four of their league matches, they have scored nine and conceded two, and they are the only team in the division with a perfect record after four rounds. Bayern Munich have ten points and a better goal difference. Freiburg have ten as well. Neither has the clean sheet of results.

Dortmund have not opened a season with four straight league wins since 2015. The last time they sat on top of the Bundesliga was the afternoon of the 2022-23 final day, when a home draw with Mainz handed Bayern the title. That was 1,212 days ago.

An hour of very little

For most of the evening this looked like the sort of game that finishes goalless and nobody complains. Dortmund had 55 per cent of the ball in the first half and the better of the openings, though Beier headed wide inside the opening five minutes and Joey Veerman’s free kick came to nothing.

Stuttgart’s two moments both came from Dortmund mistakes. Gregor Kobel got a leg to Deniz Undav’s finish after the visitors gave the ball away in their own half, and just before the break Joane Gadou ran back forty yards to take the ball off Ermedin Demirovic on a counter. Fabian Bredlow, at the other end, had a quiet night until he did not.

Ethan Nwaneri thought he had scored in the 52nd minute, running onto a Felix Nmecha through ball and finishing, but the flag went up. He was off the pitch ten minutes later.

Kovac changed it and it worked

Just after the hour Kovac took off Nwaneri and Veerman and sent on Bellingham and Konstantinos Karetsas. Eight minutes later Karetsas forced a scramble in the Stuttgart box, the ball broke to Bellingham on the right, and his cross was low and early rather than hopeful. Beier, who had been wasteful all evening, did not need to do much with it.

Stuttgart pushed. Dzenan Pejcinovic had a shot blocked in stoppage time. It stayed 1-0, and Dortmund go into the international break knowing that every other side in the league is now chasing them.

Stuttgart are 14th

The more uncomfortable number belongs to the home side. Sebastian Hoeness has one win and three defeats from four, three points, and a goal difference of minus three. Stuttgart finished last season as a European club and they are currently two places off the relegation play-off spot. Four matches is not a season, but it is not nothing either, and the fixture list does not get kinder after the break.

Catch up on the rest of the weekend’s football