This Bundesliga season has averaged the most goals per game in 16 years and there seems unlikely to be any letup when leader Borussia Dortmund meets Hamburger SV on Friday.
The last time the two clubs shared a 0-0 draw was in 1999, and Dortmund is the league's top-scoring team with 27 goals.
Many coaches attribute the flood of goals (3.20 per game) to the new, less predictable ball used across the Bundesliga. The ball, appropriately, is called Torfabrik, meaning goal factory.
But Dortmund's coach Juergen Klopp has another explanation for his team's efficiency: striker Lucas Barrios.
"Even when he's scored a pair of goals, he is driven by the thought that he maybe score another one," Klopp said ahead of Friday's game. "He stands out by this ambition to be there in the decisive moments."
Barrios, who played for Paraguay at the World Cup but is Argentine by birth, is in his second season with Dortmund. He has 11 goals and six assists this season, with six goals in the Bundesliga. He had 19 goals in his debut season for Dortmund.
Dortmund's director of sports Michael Zorc has compared Barrios with some of the best strikers who have played for Dortmund, including former Brazil forward Marcio Amoroso and Germany's Karl-Heinz Riedle.
"They all had their own styles but Lucas is equally strong in his qualities," said Zorc, who played with some of them.
Barrios came to Dortmund in the wake of a 37-goal season for Colo-Colo in Chile and needed a couple of months to adjust to the Bundesliga before starting to score regularly.
"This calmed him down and we are profiting from it now," Klopp said.
Barrios will be looking to raise his total at home against Hamburg. The matchups between the two teams have produced a league record 305 goals, and with Mladen Petric returning to Hamburg's lineup, it looks certain to raise.
Petric has four goals in his last three starts. But the former Dortmund striker has not been happy with his season.
Hamburg's coach Armin Veh has preferred Ruud van Nistelrooy as his starting striker. But the Dutchman is injured and Petric is back.
"The situation on the bench did not make me happy, after I'd been playing regularly for two seasons," Petric said.
Although Petric has 45 goals in 92 games for Hamburg, there has been speculation that he might leave the club.
"I've read the newspaper reports," was the Croat's only comment.
Veh seems to want to retain the striker.
"Mladen has special qualities. If he keeps on like this, there is no doubt that he'll play," Veh said.
Dortmund, a six-time German champion and 1997 Champions League winner that nearly went bankrupt a few years later, goes into the 12th round with 28 points, four more than Mainz, which has lost the last two to fall behind. Mainz hosts Hannover on Saturday.
Third-place Bayer Leverkusen (21 points) travels to St. Pauli, while Eintracht Frankfurt (19) visits slumping Werder Bremen. Bremen has lost its last three in the league and is coming off a 6-0 thrashing at Stuttgart. Frankfurt is unbeaten in its last six, five of them wins, and can rely on the league's leading scorer Fanis Gekas, who has 11 goals.
Bremen's predicament could be worse if striker Claudio Pizarro is unable to play because of a right-hamstring injury.
Defending champion Bayern Munich, already 12 points behind Dortmund, could benefit from the return of Franck Ribery and Mark van Bommel when it hosts Bavarian rival Nuremberg on Sunday.
On Saturday, Wolfsburg hosts Schalke, Cologne plays Borussia Moenchengladbach and Stuttgart visits Kaiserslautern.
On Sunday, Hoffenheim hosts Freiburg.
