Will Bayern Munich canter to another Bundesliga title?

Bayern finally signed Robert Lewandowski this summer

Bayern Munich look about as red hot a favourite as you can get but Alex Johnson looks at the other possible winners in the Bundesliga.

The 2014-15 Bundesliga season is hopeful of being a memorable campaign following the national side's wonderful win in the World Cup.

Germany's first world crown in 24 years has led to a commercial dream for the league clubs. What the Bundesliga doesn't need is a season like the last, when Bayern dominated from start to finish and whilst the side from the Allianz-Arena can take nothing for granted, they will be favourites.

The number one sport in Germany has raised expectations and in turn should deliver a fascinating season as the national administrators are expecting a closer battle than the previous campaign. Whether that holds true or not, will remain to be seen.

The national champions are Bayern Munich and have been for the past two seasons, their nearest challengers will be Borussia Dortmund, although most pundits are predicting a third consecutive title for Bayern.

The Bavarian club are Germany's record holding club with 23 titles and whilst they are the richest in terms of commercialism, they, like most other big clubs, come under the most pressure.

Can Dortmund edge out Bayern this season?

Bayern coach Pep Guardiola is clearly worried about the challenge from Jurgen Klopp's side in their pursuit of that triple crown, and his comments have expressed his concern. "It will be a challenge to play better than Borussia Dortmund this season," he recently said.

Borussia Dortmund have already beaten Bayern Munich only last week in the DFL-Super Cup, winning 2-0, a preview for the forthcoming season perhaps. Bayern were dominated from start to finish in the game, with worse news seeing their Spanish midfielder, Javi Martinez, stretchered off with a serious knee injury which may keep him out of action for some time.

The injury to Martinez has dealt a blow to Guardiola's new system of 3-4-3, having preferred 4-3-3 when he was coach at Barcelona, this was a move towards playing with Martinez as a centre-half, but those plans have now been put in the pending tray.

Bayern will also miss Thiago Alcantara for at least another couple of months, the midfielder is still out of action following a knee injury sustained in March.

Dortmund defeated Bayern in the equivalent fixture last term, although it didn't stop the Bavarian club winning the double last season. Klopp's side have been the most successful challengers to the Munich giants in recent seasons. These two clubs have won the Bundesliga between them thirteen times out of the last sixteen seasons, Bayern alone winning ten of those.

Bayern Munich's players featured heavily in the German national team and with such internationals come with a physical price. This is where Dortmund may have the added advantage.

There is of course a feeling in the Die Bayern camp that other clubs want to make it as difficult as possible for them to succeed this season. Bayern's hierarchy wanted the season to start later than the scheduled August 22, so that it gave all the World Cup players a well earned rest. This was overruled by the other clubs and thus adding to the anti-Munich conspiracy.

There is a slight twist this season though between these two clubs, in the last four seasons, Robert Lewandowski has scored a huge 74 goals in 131 games for Borussia Dortmund. In the summer, the Polish striker signed for Bayern Munich. The 26-year-old is considered in some eyes as the best striker in Europe at present, high claims indeed. Dortmund however have responded by strengthening well in that department, signing Ciro Immobile from Italian club Torino and Adrian Ramos from fellow Bundesliga club, Hertha Berlin.

Bayern have been a little bit naughty in this transfer window with Chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge publicly stating the buy-out clause of Borussia Dortmund's Marco Reus, in the hope of weakening his own club's league rivals. You can see how key Reus was to Dortmund though with the fact that he contributed to 30 of Dortmund's 80 league goals last season, his directness and electric pace will be crucial to Jurgen Klopp's men mounting a title bid this season.

Will there be a challenge from outside of the top two in Germany?

Schalke finished in third place last season and this season they have an excellent crop of youngsters to attempt to break the duopoly of Bayern and Dortmund. The Royal Blues are trying to catch their Ruhr area neighbours, Borussia Dortmund, and they are gaining consistent performances in the Champions League, even reaching the semi-final in 2011. The Bundesliga needs further clubs to certainly keep up with the top two.

The club from Gelsenkirchen has invested wisely and brought in experience with Sidney Sam from Bayer Leverkusen. They have managed to keep key young midfielder, Julian Draxler, and also centre-half, Benedikt Howedes, those two will be paramount if Schalke have success this season. Schalke will require more from their established stars, Kevin Prince-Boateng and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. Boateng was sent home from the World Cup in disgrace following altercations with the Ghana management, ironically his half-brother Jerome enjoyed World Cup success with Germany.

The other club that consistently reaches the Champions League positions, but never moves further is Bayer Leverkusen. Under new coach, Roger Schmidt, they are to adopt a new all-guns-blazing attacking style and with Stefan Kiessling, they already have a more than decent enough striker at the club. Depending on how this new policy works out, the pressure will be on the defence to keep goals out. Schmidt has brought in Tin Jedvaj on loan from Roma to help out as cover. The 18-year-old Croatian has only made a couple of appearances at the Stadio Olimpico, so will find it tough in only his second season in professional football.

Bayer's start to the league season is a tough one as they face Dortmund at the Signal Iduna Park. This could prove an early indication as to how either club can fare this season.

Dortmund have a real chance to put one over the champions this time around, they started last season in real good form and went on to win nine of their first eleven matches before injuries to key players in Neven Subotic, Mats Hummels, IIkay Gundogan, and Sven Bender.

They stuttered a little, before a positive finish at the end of the season meant second place and once again a place in the Champions League.

The Super Cup win was done with a 4-2-3-1 formation with Immobile as the lone striker. In the other pre-season matches, Dortmund lost 4-0 to Liverpool in a game which Jurgen Klopp described as "the opposite his side wish to play".

Bayern have had a poor pre-season, but considering they didn't use most of their World Cup-based squad on the short tour of the US, they embarrassingly lost to an MLS all-stars XI in Portland, albeit with a B-team.

Bayern will face Wolfsburg in their opening match on Friday, there is little to suggest that Bayern won't gain maximum points, however a slow start and they may well be playing catch up, and that won't be good towards the season end for their star players.