Five Conclusions From Matchday 18

Marco Reus finds all the right answers to Bayern’s trash talk. Reus’ announcement to move to Dortmund in the summer, triggered a series of trademark taunts from down south during the winter break. Reus supposedly demanded a guaranteed starting spot at Bayern. He chickened from trying to fight for his place in the team. These kind of things. Marco Reus was reasonably annoyed by the taunts and promised to give his answer on the pitch. And so he did, scoring an opportunistic goal and providing a lovely assist in Friday’s Rückrunde curtain raiser. He had some helping hands and feet of course. He benefitted from Manuel Neuer’s black out, Lucien Favre’s overall football genius and a team mate like Patrick Hermann, who is quietly having his break out season in Reus’ shadow. But still, what a player.

Bayern are hard to beat, but easy to outcoach. Bayern still have the highest quantity of top quality players in the league. That fact alone makes sure they remain top favorites for the title. Yet, looking at their five defeats in the league so far, you realize that they’ve all come against coaches with a reputation for their tactical nouse. Lucien Favre (2x), Jürgen Klopp, Thomas Tuchel and Mirko Slomka all devised match plans, with various degrees of clever forechecking, defending and counter attacks, that undid Bayern’s surplus in quality. And you could argue that some other coaches had the same ideas and just not the right mix of players and quality to achieve similar results. This fact is encouraging for those hoping for a close title race. At least for as long, as Jupp Heynckes doesn’t care to adapt to the other teams’ tactics for a change.

Maybe Dortmund are back in title winning form. Just maybe. We thought the same thing, when Dortmund soundly beat Michael Oenning’s Hamburg on matchday one. Then we realized, that this was no particularly impressive feat. Of course, Thorsten Fink’s Hamburg is generally believed to be of a different calibre nowadays, and in this case, beating Hamburg 5:1 in their own stadium is a clear message of intent to the other title hopefuls. Especially because they didn’t even need the help of Mario Götze yet. If anything, it was an excellent opportunity for Dortmund to close in on Bayern’s impressive +31 goal differential.

Schalke are finding their groove. The story of the title race has mostly been told with Bayern and Dortmund as protagonists. Somewhat in the shadow, Schalke have been up there in the table for a while, yet are mostly considered to be fighting for a Champions League spot alongside the likes of Gladbach, Bremen et al. But they’ve quietly gone about their business in the league and are on a four match winning streak. Beauties like the third goal against Stuttgart are still the exception, and not the rule, different to their direct rivals, but they’ve got enough depth and quality to stay in the title race longer than expected.

Football finds all the right punchlines for VfL Wolfsburg. Felix Magath was characteristically busy during the winter break, signing 8 players for around €30m, thanks to VW’s deep pockets. He even managed to field four of them during Saturday’s match against Cologne, equalling his own Bundesliga record of having fielded 35 different players during a season. A record he’ll surely better in the coming weeks. Yet, the only and winning goal for his side came courtesy of 18 year old youngster Sebastian Polter. A Wolfsburg youth academy player, lured to the club for free from Eintracht Braunschweig four years ago.

♦ Not a conclusion but a quick congratulations to Nuremberg, who played their 1000th Bundesliga game on Saturday against Hertha. The same team, they faced on the first matchday of the inaugural Bundesliga season. They won 2-0 and look in good shape for the upcoming relegation battle and as such, are also well positioned to add another 1000 Bundesliga matches in the coming years.

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Category: Bundesliga