Matchday 31: Your Trophy Is In Another Stadium

Dortmund need to postpone their lap of honor through the Bundesliga. Manuel Neuer may have made the “next big step” in his career from one Europa League bound club to another. A wild winning spree at the bottom of the table leaves Cologne and St. Pauli as this weekend’s biggest losers.

Leverkusen 2-1 Hoffenheim. For Dortmund to have a chance to win the Bundesliga with three matches to go, Leverkusen had to collapse once more and drop points against Hoffenheim. At half-time it looked very much like Leverkusen had every intention of doing just that with a lackluster and insecure display and being lucky to cancel out Hoffenheim’s lead just before the break. Leverkusen eventually played with a bit more purpose and turned the match around in the second half, with Hoffenheim also no longer too interested to put up much of a fight. Leverkusen at least kept their theoretical title chances alive.

M’Gladbach 1-0 Dortmund. Maybe the Leverkusen result robbed the players of that bit of extra motivation a potential early title win could have provided. In any case Dortmund played an unusually disjointed and unfocused first half, with Gladbach cleverly closing Dortmund down and taking the lead from a quick counter attack. Dortmund upped the pressure in the second half, but Lucien Favre seems to have injected enough of his trademark Hertha football already, to allow Gladbach to ride the storm and hold on to their narrow 1-0 lead. A brilliant performance by Gladbach’s 18 year old goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen helped as well. So here’s this season’s promising young German goalkeeping talent number three.

Freiburg 1-3 Hanover. Hanover still aren’t too exciting to watch overall, but they are crafting their counter attacks with ever more precision and short moments of beauty. They have perfected their game, as Freiburg’s coach Robin Dutt acknowledged after the match. The Europa League is in the bag and now Mirko Slomka’s team is determined to challenge Bayern for their self-proclaimed birthright. Hanover’s run-in looks a bit more tricky than Bayern’s though, but that also depends on how much each opponent will still have to play for.

Frankfurt 1-1 Bayern Munich. Bayern Munich are top of the virtual home-table of the league with 35 points ahead of Dortmund and Hanover (34 points each). Louis van Gaal’s undoing were Bayern’s woeful away performances. Something Andries Jonker hasn’t fixed yet either during his short reign. Bayern again struggled to create and convert their chances, while the defence was shaky enough to allow Frankfurt to steal all three points. But scoring goals clearly isn’t Frankfurt’s thing this year. Bayern’s cause wasn’t helped either by a referee who had difficulties deciding when to award a penalty or not. Bayern now have to hope for a Hanover slip up to still have a chance to win the Champions League in their own stadium next year.

St. Pauli 1-3 Bremen. St. Pauli did well to expose Bremen’s routinely ineffective offside trap in the first half to take the lead, but where eventually just overrun during the remaining 45 minutes. Bremen lead the pack of teams with squads, whose quality suggests they should never fight against relegation in the first place, and who just about managed to make that quality count when it matters. St. Pauli will have to focus on the relegation play-off spot, as safety looks to be out of reach. Although based on this display they are the surest bet to go down. Werder Bremen have virtually booked their Bundesliga ticket for next season.

Stuttgart 3-0 Hamburg. Hamburg coach Michael Oenning said he hadn’t given up on the Europa League yet. Which may be true, but his players had. Stuttgart bullied Hamburg into submission and made a big step towards safety.

Schalke 0-1 Kaiserslautern. The Bundesliga is not more than an afterthought for Schalke at the moment. A place where Ralf Rangnick can check out all those players Felix Magath has left behind for him. The media still found some excitement by chronicling Manuel Neuer’s reception following his announcement that he wouldn’t extend his contract. The result: a 60:40 ratio of warm/friendly vs cold/hostile. Meanwhile Kaiserslautern stopped by to collect three points for their Bundesliga survival.

Wolfsburg 4-1 Cologne. Felix Magath’s fitness and fear regime finally starts paying dividends, as he saw his side overrun Cologne like it was 2009 all over again. Or maybe it’s just that Cologne are the league’s worst away team, with a lame duck coach and three match losing streak. Wolfsburg fans won’t care, but Cologne fans may have to worry that their team is on a downward spiral with just about enough matches left to get relegated after all.

Nuremberg 0-0 Mainz. The hyped up Europa League play-off provided us with two teams too afraid to make mistakes and expose their defenses. In other words it was a bore-fest. Mainz protect their two point lead while also having the easier run-in, with Nuremberg still having to play Dortmund and Hanover.

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Category: Bundesliga