Played for both: Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund

In 1988 Michael Rummenigge left Bayern Munich for Borussia Dortmund after 152 league games, the earliest move among the players in Goaler's data, and the road between the two clubs has been used in both directions ever since. Goaler's football data holds 17 players with league appearances for both. Between them they made 20 moves across, twelve of them direct. Every year and figure here comes from the senior-career section of each player's English Wikipedia infobox, which counts league games only.

Six each way

In our data, the direct moves split evenly. Six went from Bayern to Dortmund: Rummenigge in 1988, Mats Hummels in 2008 and again in 2019, Mario Götze and Sebastian Rode in 2016, and Niklas Süle in 2022. Six went the other way: Thomas Helmer in 1992, Torsten Frings in 2004, Götze in 2013, Robert Lewandowski in 2014, Hummels in 2016 and Raphaël Guerreiro in 2023.

Helmer's move is the most balanced on the list. He played 190 league games for Dortmund from 1986 to 1992, then 191 for Bayern from 1992 to 1999. Lewandowski's is the most productive: 74 league goals in 131 games for Dortmund, then 238 in 253 for Bayern, 312 in all. No one else on the list reached 50 league goals for Bayern; Rummenigge is next with 44.

By way of Juventus

Seven moves took a detour, and four of them passed through Juventus. Stefan Reuter left Bayern in 1991 after 95 league games, spent 1991–92 at Juventus and joined Dortmund in 1992, where he stayed until 2004 and played 307 league games. Jürgen Kohler made the same trip in the same year but stayed at Juventus until 1995, then played 191 league games for Dortmund. Robert Kovač followed in 2007, after four years at Bayern and two at Juventus. Emre Can's route was longer: four league games for Bayern in 2012–13, then Bayer Leverkusen, Liverpool and Juventus, from where Dortmund first took him on loan in 2020.

The other three detours were Markus Feulner's, via Köln and Mainz; Ivan Perišić's, who left Dortmund in 2013 and reached Bayern on loan from Inter in 2019; and Marcel Sabitzer's, whose two seasons at Bayern ended with a loan at Manchester United before he joined Dortmund in 2023.

There and back

Two players crossed more than once. Götze went from Dortmund to Bayern in 2013 and came back three years later, finishing with 158 league games for Dortmund and 73 for Bayern. Hummels crossed three times. He made one league appearance for Bayern before his loan to Dortmund in 2008, came back to Bayern in 2016 for 74 more, and returned to Dortmund in 2019. His 367 league games for Dortmund are the most by anyone on the list for either club, and his 442 for the two clubs together are the most overall, ahead of Reuter's 402.

Who they are

Twelve of the 17 are German. Croatia has two, Perišić and Kovač, and Poland, Portugal and Austria one each. Bayern came first for eleven of them and Dortmund for six. Emre Can and Sabitzer were still Dortmund players in the October 2026 data.

A few of the 17 hardly played for one side. Toni Schumacher played eight league games for Bayern in 1991–92 and one for Dortmund in 1995–96, and his infobox lists nothing in between. Emre Can has four league games for Bayern, and Hummels's first Bayern spell holds just one. All of them count, since a single senior appearance fits a club in Tic-Tac-Toe and loans are included; games for Bayern's or Dortmund's reserve teams are not.

The list is not complete. Goaler's data only holds footballers covered by 20 or more Wikipedia language editions, so a lesser-known player with a few games for each club may be missing. Two known names are missing: Jürgen Wegmann (Bayern 1987–89, then straight back to Dortmund) and Christian Nerlinger (Bayern to Dortmund, 1998). Wikidata also links Udo Lattek, who coached both clubs but played for neither, and Marin Pongračić to Bayern; their infoboxes do not support it, so they are left out. The same question for Spain has its own page, Barcelona and Real Madrid, and the Bayern players who never left are among the one-club men.