Nobody needs Borussia Dortmund to be great again more than Bayern Munich

Borussia Dortmund could be on the verge of a very special team. They have a talented and spectacularly young group that only figures to get better. So while they sit fourth in the Bundesliga, out of the title race for months now, there is hope that they can mount a challenge in both the league and Europe before long.

And nobody wants to see Borussia Dortmund become a great team more than Bayern Munich.

It may sound weird that the country's dominant team is rooting for its challengers, but Bayern Munich are. They desperately need the rest of the league to get better. As is, the Bundesliga title race is considered a foregone conclusion before a ball is kicked. Bayern Munich can rack up titles -- they are on their way to winning the league for a fifth straight year -- but that only carries so much weight when people don't see anyone as good enough to push you.

When the modern Bayern Munich dynasty started, they did have a challenger -- Dortmund.

Before Bayern won the Bundesliga time and time again, BVB took home the league in back-to-back seasons in 2010-11 and 2011-12. Then the two rivals met in the Champions League final. Bayern being crowned champions of Germany was no small feat, because the second-best team in all of Europe was right there pushing them for it. For all the talk about the 2012/13 Bayern Munich team's unprecedented treble, part of the aura that came with such an incredible season was because such an excellent Dortmund team challenged them on all three fronts.

But that hasn't been the case for years.

Bayern Munich contributed to Dortmund's fall, signing Mario Gotze, Robert Lewandowski and Mats Hummels away from the Westfalenstadion, but that was only part of a club in transition. Jurgen Klopp left, eventually landing at Liverpool, Ilkay Gundogan went to Manchester City, Shinji Kagawa departed before coming back, and some of the team's aging linchpins like Jakub Błaszczykowski and Kevin Grosskreutz were phased out.

Of the 11 players who started for Borussia Dortmund in the 2013 Champions League final, only five are still at the club and Marco Reus is the only one who you could say is part of the team's core. The turnover has made for a completely new team, and BVB have suffered through growing pains as a result.

Borussia Dortmund haven't really put up much of a fight against Bayern Munich in the four years since. That doesn't mean they've been bad, because they're still a factor in the Champions League, but that's a long ways off from where Bayern Munich are. After all, Dortmund haven't won a trophy since 2012.

Dortmund may be ready to go toe-to-toe with Bayern Munich again, though. They've reloaded on youth: Ousmane Dembele, Julian Weigl, Christian Pulisic, Matthias Ginter, Raphael Guerreiro, Emre Mor and Felix Passlack represent the future of the club, all of them tremendously talented, playing with the first team, and 23 years old or younger. No team in the world has that much good young talent, and they're not just prospects. They're all players who have proven themselves in the Bundesliga already, showing that they're ready for that level now, if not outright stars. And that's not to mention that they all figure to get better.

If that's not enough, the young players are there to go along with Gotze (if he comes back from his metabolic issue), Marco Reus, Andre Schurrle, Sven Bender and the still under-30 established players the team has. Projecting the future can be scary -- and often make you look foolish -- but it's hard not to look at Dortmund's and see anything but incredible success.

The only real threat, for now, is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who has hinted that he wants to leave the club in the summer. If he does, Dortmund will have a big hole to fill at striker, but they will also cash a fat check from Real Madrid or some other huge club. That would be money for them to spend, on top of the fact that they've already shown more willingness to spend in recent years. So if what they have on the roster already doesn't make for a bright enough future, factor in some signings too.

Borussia Dortmund could be something special. And if they are, we might get the world's top two clubs battling for the Bundesliga and Champions League titles again.

That sounds great for us, and for Borussia Dortmund ... but it's also what Bayern Munich need. The Bavarians need the BVB of old, and they may just get them soon.

Correction: This article originally stated Ilkay Gundogan left Dortmund for Real Madrid. It has been corrected.