Nine years. Rounded down to the nearest whole number, that is the average time that has elapsed between Borussia Dortmund's seven German title triumphs, the most recent of which was confirmed on Saturday following a 2-0 victory over Nuremberg.
As with any club seeking to challenge Bayern Munich's Bundesliga hegemony (22 titles at the last count), Dortmund's success has come in fits and starts. National champions in the final pre-Bundesliga season in 1962-63, they had to wait 32 years for their next championship success, while Saturday's triumph ended a nine-year wait since their previous league title.
The challenge now facing coach Jürgen Klopp, sporting director Michael Zorc and long-serving president Reinhard Rauball is to harness Dortmund's momentum and turn their current success into something lasting.
The effervescence of Dortmund's play this season has won them plaudits across Europe and seen centre-back Mats Hummels, left-back Marcel Schmelzer, holding midfielder Sven Bender, twinkle-toed teenage starlet Mario Götze - 'Götzinho' to his team-mates - and forward Kevin Großkreutz begin to establish themselves in the national squad.
Dortmund also managed to reach the championship finishing line without the injured Shinji Kagawa, who illuminated the Bundesliga with eight goals in 17 games following his cut-price €350,000 move from Cerezo Osaka but broke his foot on Asian Cup duty with Japan in January.
There are plenty of would-be suitors for the club's young stars, but Dortmund acted shrewdly earlier in the spring by tying their up-and-coming players to long-term deals. Hummels (22), Schmelzer (23), Götze (18) and Großkreutz (22) are all under contract until 2014, although an unfortunately low €6 million departure clause in the contract of influential Turkish playmaker Nuri Sahin means that he could leave the club in the summer.
Crucially, the core of the side is made up of local players. Großkreutz is a die-hard Dortmund fan, who was watching the team from the Westfalenstadion's fabled Südtribüne as recently as two seasons ago. Götze is the son of a professor at Dortmund's technical university, while Hummels and Sahin also hail from western Germany.
If Dortmund are to mount a consistent challenge to Bayern's traditional dominance, their home-grown players' attachment to the club could prove crucial. Dortmund flirted with bankruptcy in 2005 but are now on a much more secure financial footing and the income generated by next season's Champions League campaign will also make it easier to hold on to their prized assets.
With a regularly sold-out 80,000-capacity stadium that makes them one of the best-supported teams on the continent and an innovative young coach who inspires frightening levels of devotion among the club's fans, Dortmund should not have to wait another nine years for their next brush with glory.
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