Mohamed Zidan celebrates with teammates
Borussia Dortmund were crowned German champions for the seventh time on Saturday and are worthy winners having swept aside all their rivals to dominate the Bundesliga this season.
Their win at home to Nuremberg means Dortmund can not now be caught with two games remaining for them and Bayer Leverkusen, whose away defeat at Cologne ended their challenge.
If winning the Bundesliga title means beating defending champions Bayern Munich, Dortmund proved their credentials with home and away wins over their Bavarian rivals.
A convincing 2-0 win over Bayern at Dortmund in October was backed up with a 3-1 win at Munich's Allianz Arena at the end of February to leave the Bavarian giants reeling.
Dortmund are now assured of their first league title since 2002, but they got off to an inauspicious start to the season with a 2-0 defeat at home to Leverkusen back on August 22.
It proved to be their only league defeat at home this season as they went on a 15-match unbeaten run in the league which was finally ended in their last game before Christmas when they lost 1-0 at Eintracht Frankfurt on December 18.
Dortmund's biggest win of the season was a 5-0 routing of Kaiserslautern at home in September.
While Mainz won their opening seven games to race into an early lead to steal the limelight, Dortmund quietly picked up points and were perfectly placed to take over at the top when Mainz finally faltered in mid-October.
They dropped briefly to second in the table after a 1-1 draw at home to Hoffenheim, but they were back at the top by the end of October.
A 4-0 hammering of rivals Hanover at the start of November put Dortmund four points clear at the top of the table and Klopp signed a contract extension to keep him at Borussia until 2014.
A 2-0 win at Nuremberg at the start of December put Dortmund 10 points clear at the top of the table having conceded only nine goals in their first 15 games.
Dortmund started the year by avenging their first defeat of the season with a 3-1 win at Leverkusen, which opened up a 12 point lead at the top of the table.
But Leverkusen stayed in the hunt and Dortmund's 12-point lead at the start of March had been cut to just five before defending champions Bayern Munich demolished Leverkusen's title ambitions with a 5-1 defeat on April 17.
The massacre in Munich was followed up by Dortmund's 3-0 win at home to Freiburg the same day which took the lead back up to eight points, before victory in front of over 80,000 home supporters against Nuremberg sealed the title for Jurgen Klopp's side.
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