It was announced on the morning of Bayern Munich's Champions League tie with Barcelona and 36 hours ahead of Borussia Dortmund's home leg encounter against Real Madrid, but with the signing of Mario Götze, the recently crowned Bundesliga champions have signalled their intentions prior to the upcoming campaign before this season has even drawn to a close.
The news that the 20-year-old would be plying his trade at the Allianz Arena next year began to gather momentum in the early hours of Tuesday morning before Die Schwarzgelben confirmed Götze would be a Bayern player come the 1st of July via their official Facebook page.
The deal comes a little over a week after Der FCB president Uli Hoeness had spoken of his fears of the Bundesliga becoming a duopoly, with Bayern and Dortmund the pairing that would be expected to dominate German football.
However, with his arrival, Götze will not only weaken Jurgen Klopp's side significantly, but the deal will go some distance to monopolising the Bundesliga in favour of Bayern, with Hoeness complaining that the league had already become too easy.
Furthermore, with the imminent arrival of Pep Guardiola, and a supposed £240m transfer kitty to dip into over the summer, prior to the signing of the Germany international, it will only see the strongest team in the nation become yet stronger.
Yet, the deal has seen fears rise as to where Götze will play in the Bayern starting XI. With Javi Martinez and Bastien Schweinsteiger occupying the 'Doppel Sechs' role to shield the defence and Mario Mandzukic, Mario Gomez and Claudio Pizarro the recognised frontmen, it'll be in the attacking trio behind the striker that the midfielder will be expected to perform.
Guardiola, as it currently stands, possesses an abundance of options in the position, however. Toni Kroos, Franck Ribéry, Thomas Müller, Xherdan Shaqiri and Arjen Robben are the prominent quintet that are all vying for a starting spot under Jupp Heynckes at present and the arrival of Götze will only increase competition for a first team berth.
Naturally, it'll leave the former Barcelona head coach with a selection headache, but one that he'll likely welcome with open arms considering the expectations that will undoubtedly rise following an impressive year, in which Bayern have swept aside all those in front of them to claim their 23rd Bundesliga title, dropping points just four times in their quest for glory, at the time of writing.
One stat that will weigh in the favour of Götze is that he has created the joint highest clear cut goalscoring chances (15) in the Bundesliga this season, adding to that with nine assists over his 28 appearances.
In comparison to his future teammates, should they remain with Bayern come the close of the summer transfer window, Ribéry is level with the young midfielder in terms of clear cut chances created, while Müller is second behind the pairing having created 13 himself, although the pair have made only 24 appearances this year, four fewer than Götze.
With that in mind, it's Ribéry who is the stronger of the trio having created one clear cut goalscoring opportunity every 1.6 games, while providing one more assist (10) than Götze. However, the current Dortmund midfielder is level with Muller in creating a chance every 1.8 appearances, with his compatriot also providing 10 assists.
Focusing on the rest of the Bundesliga, Kevin De Bruyne, on loan from Chelsea at Werder Bremen, has also created 15 clear cut chances for his teammates, although having made 30 appearances this season, the Belgian is only creating one chance every two games. However, he does have nine assists to his name, a figure level with Götze.
Naturally, in a role such as Götze's, the need to create is a necessity and it's no surprise to see him place joint 5th for accurate through balls this season, putting a teammate in on goal on 9 occasions, a figure that puts him level with current Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Lewis Holtby and FC Schalke 04's Jermaine Jones, all one above Ribéry.
However, it's compatriot Kroos that ranks the highest out of the Bayern midfielders and the Dortmund youngster with 11 of his through balls proving accurate, although that figure is eclipsed by Wolfsburg's Diego, with the Brazilian seeing 17 of his through balls find a teammate.
Interestingly, the Bayern-bound Germany international ranks third in terms of attempted dribbles over the campaign (160), but that figure is overshadowed by Ribéry, who has looked to run with the ball past an opponent 220 times this term.
Furthermore, Götze ranks second for the amount of times he has lost the ball when dribbling (76), a figure once again topped by Ribéry, who has been dispossessed when running with the ball a staggering 112 times, the Frenchman failing with 50.9% of his attempts to run at an opponent compared to the German's 47.5%.
When compared to the rest of Bayern's attacking quintet, Müller has failed with 43 of his attempted dribbles, Shaqiri 33, Kroos 19 and Robben 18. This points towards the likelihood of Götze being utilised on one of the flanks in the attacking trio, with Kroos or Müller operating in behind the striker as a result of the former's ability to thread an accurate pass through the defence and the latter's 13 clear cut chances created this season.
Nevertheless, Dortmund's loss is certainly Bayern's gain as highlighted in the win ratio when Götze hasn't started. Beginning 23 games for Klopp's side this season has seen the club pick up 15 victories (65%), a figure that drops to three wins from seven when he's started from the substitute bench or been unavailable for selection (42%).
Losing one of your star players to your biggest rival is always going to hinder your progression as a club, especially following the departure of Shinji Kagawa to Premier League champions Manchester United last summer, but the loss of Götze will likely see Dortmund fall further behind their Bundesliga counterparts in the race for supremacy in Germany.
