Kompany’s Bayern clinch the Bundesliga with four games to spare as Stuttgart fall 4-2 in Munich

Bayern Munich are Bundesliga champions again. A 4-2 win over Stuttgart at the Allianz Arena on Sunday afternoon was enough to put Vincent Kompany’s side an unassailable 15 points clear of Borussia Dortmund with four rounds still to play, and the title was secured in the dressing room before anyone had left the ground.

This is Bayern’s 35th German championship. It is also their 13th title in 14 years, a run that the rest of the Bundesliga has not yet worked out how to interrupt, and the first for Kompany in his debut season after replacing Thomas Tuchel over the summer.

A scare, then a six-minute burst

Stuttgart had flipped the start on its head. Chris Fuhrich put the visitors in front in the 21st minute and had the home crowd muttering about another wobbly afternoon, because Bayern’s recent form before this had been good rather than overwhelming. What followed was the sort of six-minute swing that title-winning teams tend to produce when they are asked to.

Raphael Guerreiro levelled, Nicolas Jackson put Bayern ahead, and Alphonso Davies finished the spell with a third before the break. By half-time the tone of the game had completely changed, and any nerves around clinching the title inside 90 minutes had been replaced by the kind of control Kompany’s side have specialised in all season.

Kane seals it from the bench

Harry Kane had started the afternoon on the bench and came on to score the fourth, his league-leading 32nd of the season. It was the goal that made the full-time whistle feel like a formality rather than a tense closing-out, and the captain’s celebration afterwards carried the energy of a player who has finally added a league medal to a career that had been waiting for one.

Kane has been the statistical engine of Kompany’s first season, but the wider story is about how the squad has been rebuilt around him. Guerreiro has added to the attack from the left, Jackson’s summer move has given Bayern a different kind of physical option through the middle, and Davies is back to his best after some injury issues earlier in the season. The treble is still alive too, with a DFB-Pokal semi-final against Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday and a Champions League semi-final with Paris Saint-Germain still to come.

The Bundesliga’s familiar problem

There will be conversation this week about what this title says about the state of the German top flight. Just one league defeat in a season is the kind of number that usually arrives with a treble talk attached, and it underlines how far Bayern have pulled away from the chasing pack this year. Dortmund have not been consistent enough, Leverkusen have fallen off after their 2023-24 peak, and no one else has come close.

That is a story for the rest of the league to worry about. For Kompany, in his first season in charge, this is a debut-year title won with four games to spare and two other trophies still in play. For Bayern, it is another line on a list that has long since stopped counting. For Kane, who waited out a long career for a first senior medal, it is the best kind of relief.

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