The Bundesliga is a four-class society. You could apply some statistical number crunching to the current Bundesliga table and end up with the conclusion, that the stereotypically competitive Bundesliga is particularly competitive this season. You could also just look at the fact, that we have a four-horse title race to arrive at the same result. But for all this numerical competitiveness, fairly little is actually going on in the table. The top four compete for the title, but Champions League qualification already seems to be a given. Then there are three teams competing for two Europa League spots. Depending on how the DFB-Pokal plays out, there actually might be three spots for three teams and no competing left to do. Then there are eight teams in the glass half-full or half-empty category. Either they are trailing the Europa League by six points, or there are only six points between them and relegation. They haven’t yet made their mind up about second half of the season goals. And finally, there are the bottom three, who have yet to determine, who is going to play in the relegation play-off. So, except for the great title race, there is not that much going on at the moment. Hopefully this is only a temporary glitch, and the league still has some twists and turns and “social movability” up its’ sleeve over the next three months.

Zidan and Barrios made the most of their winter (non-)transfer. It wasn’t just a good weekend for Dortmund on the macro level. On a smaller scale, their winter transfer dealings had a very welcome impact on the title defense as well. Good-as-gone-happy-to-stay striker Lucas Barrios, proved that he could still play an important role for Dortmund, after putting the match against Nuremberg beyond doubt on Friday. Back-to-Mainz-but-only-if-Barrios-stays Mohamed Zidan felt right at home again in Mainz’s starting eleven, scoring his first goal of the season against Schalke, ensuring one of Dortmund’s title rivals dropped points. Well unintentionally done Michael Zorc.

Michael Preetz keeps signing the right coach for the wrong job. Friedhelm Funkel could have been the right coach to guide Hertha back to the Bundesliga. But he was an uninspired choice, following Lucien Favre’s premature sacking. Michael Skibbe could be an option for a well established Bundesliga side, but is looking like a risky choice for a freshly promoted side. It took Skibbe just three weeks and three losses, to turn Hertha from a relatively stable mid-table team into a glimmer of hope for Freiburg and Augsburg. Basically he’s picking up right where he left off with Frankfurt.

Holger Stanislawski is losing hope in Hoffenheim. It’s not difficult to describe Hoffenheim’s football at the moment. It’s uninspired and lifeless. But it’s difficult to describe Holger Stanislawski’s relationship to his team and his club. Week after week, his post match interviews are filled with resignation and helplessness. He has the full backing from the management, but he doesn’t seem to connect to his players anymore. This could be the prelude to a busy summer transfer window and one of those rare occasions, where a club is willing to sack the players and not the coach. Either that, or Holger Stanislawski’s premature end to his Hoffenheim reign, is just a matter of time.

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.

Gladbach coach Lucien Favre is visibly delighted with his team’s performance against Bayern Munich.

(Photo by Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty Images)

Draxler cuts the pass → Marica → Raul → Draxler → Raul → Huntelaar → Draxler → Goal!

This is one of the better team goals you’ll see this season. And what makes it even more remarkable, is the small fact, that it was scored by a team coached by all things defense expert Huub Stevens.

Truth is the first casualty of war. An odd private war, fought out over the past week and weekend, between the architects of Hertha’s revival: Markus Babbel and Michael Preetz. It started with Markus Babbel’s unwillingness to extend his contract as Hertha coach. It ended with his premature sacking. In between, bizarre scenes of finger pointing took place. Lie stood against lie, or truth against truth or some variant of the two. And we still don’t know, why Babbel no longer wanted to work as Hertha coach in the first place. It’s one of the most bizarre sackings in recent Bundesliga history.

Now it’s legitimate to compare this Gladbach side to the club’s glory days. Pointswise. The same team, that had just 10 points after 17 games last year, has now racked up 33 points. This makes it the best Hinrunde for Gladbach in 35 years. And 35 years ago they won the title. Not that it’s a realistic prospect. But even the possibility, of it being an unrealistic prospect, is a great credit to Favre, Reus et al.

Nuremberg got a much needed lift. For the past couple of weeks, Nuremberg played pretty well for a club in crisis and close to the drop zone. They just never managed to reap the rewards. Saturday’s game against Leverkusen was a timely reminder, that they haven’t done that much wrong. In fact they did enough things right, for their highest away win against Leverkusen. One that has lifted them above the relegation places in time for slightly more relaxed winter break.

Age is just a number. Particularly when that number belongs to Raul. Raul scored his third Bundesliga hattrick on Saturday. It was his second against Bremen, whose defending is particularly conducive to this kind of feat. That makes it ten goals and five assists in 17 matches for the 34 year old striker. Enough for Schalke to think a bit harder about ways to keep him. In January we’ll know, wether it’ll be enough to make Raul resist rumored lucrative offers from Qatar or MLS.

Playing in the Europa League pays off. The unloved, often ignored step child of the Champions League can have its’ upsides. Like accidentally stumbling upon a great and cheap player. If Schalke hadn’t been drawn against Helsinki in the Europa League play-offs, they wouldn’t have signed Teemu Pukki. They would have an extra €1.5m in the bank. But they would be under bigger pressure to think about possible replacements for Raul and Huntelaar. They probably wouldn’t have won against Hertha either. Pukki might even help Schalke get back into the Champions League. All thanks to the Europa League. Who would have thought?

Freiburg might be better off selling Cisse in the winter. There won’t be a shortage of suitors and Freiburg can command a higher fee than in the summer. More importantly, Cisse’s class alone doesn’t seem to be enough to save Freiburg anyway. Freiburg dropped to last place, following a 4-0 drubbing in Cologne, with the hosts not even needing to excel to run up the score. Cisse managed to get four not particularly threatening shots on goal. His transfer fee on the other hand, could help make signings, that can secure another year in the Bundesliga.

Hanover got stuck in the middle of the table. Three draws in a row. 8th place in the table for the same time period. Hanover are slowly loosing touch with the Europa League places. At least their form curve is showing up again. After being lucky to escape with a point against Freiburg and Hamburg, they were unlucky not to win against Leverkusen. The good news didn’t end here. Jan Schlaudraff decided to get stuck in Hanover for another four years. Now they only need to start winning again.

Bowling doesn’t improve your defense. Felix Magath reacted to the non-progress of his team, with a mid-season training camp and a round of bowling. That didn’t help fix the team’s defensive problems, following another drubbing away from home. With a squad of only 34 players, chances are slim, that Magath will find the right players for the job. The winter transfer window can’t come soon enough.

Werder Bremen need to take some anger management classes. Hannover are still leading the league in fouls, but they foul with a clear tactical plan. Werder Bremen come second, but seemingly not for a particular strategic reason. On Saturday in the Allianz Arena it looked like they welcomed Bayern Munich not as an opponent, but as a punching bag for their frustrations. It’s not completely unwaranted. After being beaten by a 10 man Dortmund side at home, and brushed aside by full strength Bayern and Gladbach sides away, they may have realised that their chances in the title and Champions League race are rather slim.

There’s a visible gap between the top three and the bottom fifteen. Pointswise, Bayern and the Borussias haven’t pulled away from the rest yet. Gladbach might be a candidate for an injury induced drop down the table – although they handled the loss of Reus very well against Dortmund. The visibility of the gap is more about the style and dominance expressed on the pitch. The top three are playing on a different level than the rest. Maybe the slow and steady progress of Robin Dutt’s Leverkusen can eventually alter the picture.

Hoffenheim is not a village for a pirate. While Hoffenheim have successfully established themselves in the Bundesliga, they failed to establish an identity. They are still predominantely seen as the pet project of a billionaire and not much else. The “Vorsprung durch Technik” route, taken by Ralf Rangnick and Jan Schindelmeiser, looked promising. Then their high tech scouting led to the signing of a couple of flops. Then their high tech training couldn’t stop the team from looking more and more lifeless. Holger Stanislawski was brought in, to breath some fresh life into the team, and bring a bit of St. Pauli counter culture flair and dirt to the country side. His first steps looked promising, as a clearly improved Hoffenheim side, threatened to be a serious Europa League contender. A couple of weeks and inconsistent or plain bad performances later, Stanislawski is standing rather stunned and puzzled on the sideline. Rather than lighting up the village, it now looks like Hoffenheim sucked the life out of him instead.

Sharing is caring. It’s Christmas time and a season record five Bundesliga clubs decided to amicably share the points between them, instead of dividing the world into winners and loosers. As such Cologne recovered from their derby loss, while Stuttgart’s good form didn’t take a hit. Mainz didn’t loose all momentum gained from the win over Bayern, while Wolfsburg at least aren’t in full crisis mode. Freiburg and Kaiserslautern make babysteps out of the relegation zone without causing Hertha and Hannover too much trouble.

Gladbach are catching up on goal differential. Lucien Favre quoted Gladbach’s ability to create three to four times more chances per match, compared to last season, as the key behind their current success. Early in the season they had the tendency to only put one, or at most two, of those into the back of the net, making them one of the most wasteful and inefficient teams in the league. That has changed, and while Gladbach games in general where quite entertaining to watch, I might go as far and say, that at this moment they are even better to watch than Dortmund and Bayern. I may, of course, be proven completely wrong next weekend, when they take on Dortmund – possibly without Marco Reus, who broke his toe.

Dortmund no longer need catching up. They suddenly lead the Bundesliga again, emerging with six out of nine points from their week of truth. And while they have to accept the sad truth, that they can’t handle the new terrain of the Champions League yet, they have mastered their fiercest rivals in the Bundesliga. The team isn’t yet on par with the performances orchestrated by Nuri Sahin, but that probably just means, they won’t simply run away with the league this time around.

Central defenders are catching up with strikers. Lukas Podolski didn’t see much of the ball against Mönchengladbach. Klaas Jan Huntelaar didn’t see much of the ball against Dortmund. Mario Gomez didn’t see much of the ball against Mainz. Marco Reus saw much of the ball, but decided against scoring another brace or hat-trick. Claudio Pizarro saw much of the ball, but it was from the stands. In a season dominated by free scoring strikers, last weekend was a rather odd exception. Seven goals by central defenders (Santana, Bungert, Naldo, Toprak, van Buyten, Bruma) compared quite favorably to the ten goals scored by strikers. In fact, since Lewandowski and Hanke played in a slightly different role, you could say it was a tie between the defense and the classic poacher.

Augsburg are catching up with the other teams. There still is a dearth of talent in Augsburg’s squad and a dearth of money to change that. But Augsburg seem willing to run and fight and give it a serious try and they are finally getting some results. Their first home win was against Wolfsburg, who along Cologne, are the most erratic in the league, so maybe we shouldn’t read too much into it. But with eleven points and three matches to go this year, Augsburg could at least move into a position, where hopes for Bundesliga survival are not completely unfounded. Who knows where some clever loan deals in the winter could eventually lead them.

We have a title race, at least until next week. At which point we might again conclude, that it’s actually all about Bayern pulling away from the league and never coming back. But this week we do have a title race, thanks to Dortmund’s slim 1-0 victory in Munich. Dortmund needed to run a lot and they needed the ball to get lost and then show up on Mario Götze’s feet. But they’ve also put their early season wobble and the loss of Nuri Sahin behind them for good. That gives us a bit of hope, that they are now ready to challenge Bayern to the title long into 2012.

Marco Reus isn’t getting any cheaper. He won’t get any more expensive either. The fee for his buyout clause is somewhere around €18m. A concession Gladbach had to make to talk Reus into signing a contract extension in the first place. For the richer clubs in Europe, it’ll be one of the biggest bargains of the summer. If BILD are to be believed, it’ll be one of the biggest bargains Bayern Munich will make next summer. Until then though, Gladbach fans can enjoy the closest their team has gotten to the golden seventies, since, well, the golden seventies. Gladbach topped their 4-1 gala display against Wolfsburg with an even more comprehensive 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen. Wherever Marco Reus will play next summer, it looks increasingly likely his club will play in European competitions.

Wolfsburg witnessed a rare string of events. Hasan Salihamidžić scored his first Bundesliga brace in roughly ten years and Wolfsburg pulled off a convincing performance, in what felt like ten years as well. The team slowly starts to gel, which is a little too late though. The winter transfer window isn’t far away, and Felix Magath can’t wait too reshuffle his team with a fresh round of signings.

Jaroslav Drobny finally got his first clean sheet of the season. The last goalkeeper in the Bundesliga to do so. And his team mates made him work hard for it towards the end of Hamburg’s match against Hoffenheim. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fully deserved result for Hamburg. It also happened to be Hamburg’s first home win and Fink’s first win as a Hamburg coach. Thorsten Fink has injected new life into the team. More importantly, he is also giving the players a clear idea of how he wants them to play football. It’s finally fun to watch Hamburg matches again. Well, it was fun to watch Hamburg play under Oenning as well, in a comedic sort of way.