Bundesliga table on matchday 4 - Dortmund are perfect and still cannot clinch anything

Borussia Dortmund have won all four of their matches, scored nine and conceded two, and lead the Bundesliga on 12 points. The arithmetic still gives them nothing. To guarantee a top-four finish today they would need 87 more points from their 30 remaining matches, which is the equivalent of winning 29 of the 30. Every one of the 18 clubs can still finish first, and every one can still finish last.

Every number below is computed as of the September 20 update, which covers Saturday's matches plus Dortmund's Sunday win at Stuttgart. That is 33 of the season's 306 matches, with Sunday's late game still to be played. Each club plays 34. Twelve clubs have played four and six have played three, so the remaining-match counts differ across the table. This table tracks four qualifying places at the top and two automatic relegation places at the bottom, and every clinch and tragic number here is measured against those two lines.

Dortmund's win on Sunday was a 1-0 at Stuttgart. Bayern Munich and Freiburg sit a point behind on 10, each with three wins and a draw. Bayern have scored 14 and conceded 2, Freiburg 12 and 3. Dortmund are the only club with a title clinch line the schedule can still reach: 88 points from 30 matches, one point above their top-four line of 87. Bayern and Freiburg have no title line at all. Their top-four line is 89 points from 30 matches, and 30 matches are worth 90, so a guarantee today means winning every one of them.

Those figures look absurd, and they are supposed to. A clinch line is the worst case written out: the total that holds even if every rival wins every match it has left. In September nothing yet rules that worst case out, which is why Dortmund's line to be mathematically certain of avoiding the drop comes out at 79 more points. A clinch line is not a forecast. It is the point at which a club stops needing anyone else's help, and in the fourth week of a 34-match season nobody is near it.

Saturday produced the heaviest scorelines of the season so far. Bayern beat Union Berlin 7-0 at home. Leipzig had already beaten Hamburg 5-0 the previous Sunday. On the same Saturday, Mainz won 4-3 away at Mönchengladbach, Werder Bremen beat Augsburg 3-2, and Hamburg beat Köln 2-1. One caution about all of that. This table ranks on points, and not a single number in this article moves because of goal difference. A 7-0 and a 1-0 are the same three points in every calculation here.

Augsburg, Mainz and Werder Bremen are level on 7 points and none of them has a top-four clinch line, because the guarantee would require 92 points from a possible 90. Leipzig and SV Elversberg, on 6 points from three matches each, are the only clubs outside the top three that still have one: 93 points from 31 matches, which is every match. Their tragic number runs the other way at 31, so they would have to lose every remaining match before a top-four finish became impossible. Both numbers say the same thing about the fourth matchday of a 34-match season.

At the bottom, Borussia Mönchengladbach have lost all four and have 0 points, with 16 conceded. Their top-four tragic number, 28, is the lowest in the table, so 28 further defeats would close that question. They are also the only club carrying a relegation tragic number, and it is 30, which is every match they have left. That is the weakest version of the number, not a warning: it says only that nothing can be settled before the final day. Union Berlin have 1 point and have conceded 17 in four matches, seven of them on Saturday, and they are one of only two clubs with no reachable safety line today. Paderborn also have 1 point, from three matches, and have not scored yet. Hamburg have 3 points, 2 goals scored and 13 conceded, and both of those goals came in the win over Köln.

Leverkusen host Leipzig on Sunday, the last fixture in the data for that day. Monday brings two more, Paderborn against Hoffenheim and Schalke against Elversberg. Leipzig and Elversberg need all 31 of their remaining matches to reach their top-four line, the same perfect record Bayern and Freiburg already need for theirs, so a single dropped point removes it. After Monday the next fixtures in the data are on Saturday, October 10, and two of them matter at the top: Dortmund host Werder Bremen and Augsburg host Bayern. Union Berlin host Elversberg the same day.

How to read these numbers. A clinch number is the minimum a club must still collect to guarantee an outcome even if every rival wins every remaining match. A tragic number is the number of further defeats after which the outcome is impossible even if that club wins everything else. Ties are counted against the club in question, so our clinch can trail an official announcement by a day. The full table is at /bundesliga, the remaining fixtures at /bundesliga/schedule, the qualifying and relegation rules at /bundesliga/postseason, and each club's own numbers at its page, such as /bundesliga/team/26261. To test a run of results yourself, use /bundesliga/whatif.