Philipp Lahm. Bayern’s disappointing draw at home against Schalke. Robben’s moment of madness for which he should have seen a red card. Luca Toni’s early departure from the Allianz Arena. All the possible talking points that Saturday’s game delivered were completely overshadowed by one simple thing: The Truth. Bayern’s reaction: a heavy monetary fine and the promise that Philipp Lahm will be the captain of the team one day.

Michael Skibbe. At the beginning of the season Frankfurt’s new coach tried to breath new life into an old diva, who had dumped drama for fiscal responsibility, a bun and a job in the local library. He did so with an overabundance of positive rhetoric. He talked up the players and the club and promised attractive attacking football. 12 matches later everyone in Frankfurt came to the realization, that they are nonetheless still looking at the same old players, club and football. The humiliating defeat against Leverkusen now prompted Michael Skibbe to swing to the other side of the extreme and start doom mongering. In post match interviews and press conferences he lashed out in all directions. He questioned the quality of the players, the composition of the squad, the scouting, the club and pretty much everything and everybody. He predicted that the club will move backwards if things stay as they are. His outburst and consequently his possible motives left the fans and press in Frankfurt puzzled. Was he looking to provoke his dismissal or preparing his resignation? Skibbe later rejected such suggestions, stating he is happy to be Frankfurt’s coach but that he wants to change things and move the club in the right direction. Frankfurt’s management is so far keeping a low profile and did not comment on Skibbe’s accusations/suggestions. For anyone with a soft spot for clubs living the wallflower life, it’ll interesting to see what happens next in Frankfurt.

Historical Revisionism. In light of recent events, Bayern’s performance in their DFB-Pokal match against Eintracht Frankfurt needs to be re-evaluated. It wasn’t one of Bayern’s best games this season. It was pretty much in line with the other games. After all, Bayern needed a full 14 minutes to score the first goal and another 15 minutes to score two more. 14 minutes into Bayer Leverkusen’s game against Frankfurt, the Werkself was meanwhile ready to call it a day and head to the showers, after Kroos had made it 3-0 in the 11th minute.

History Repeating. It’s a cherished Bundesliga tradition for Bayer Leverkusen to be in an excellent position in the table at this point of a season. In the past, that was always the cue for Bayern Munich to ground the perennial runner-ups with a humbling defeat, to remind them of their place in the Bundesliga food chain. Bayer’s visit to the Allianz Arena in two weeks should give us a good idea about whether legs will turn to jelly once agin, or whether Jupp Heynckes’ Leverkusen side has what it takes to mount a serious title challenge.

Schalke 04. Schalke are one of the most exciting clubs to follow at the moment. Not because the football is great – it’s not. It’s uninspired, one dimensional and gets the job done. But because you can peek over Felix Magath’s shoulder, as he step by step assembles a new team, fielding Schalke youth teams and promoting talents nobody ever heard about. Whether he manages to build a team with the potential to win the Bundesliga remains to be seen. His foremost task at the moment is to reduce the wage budget and balance the books again.

Referees. It wasn’t a good weekend for decisive offside calls. Bundesliga referees denied three perfectly good goals this weekend. With the situation at the bottom of the table getting more and more serious, that was particularly bad news for Nuremberg and Bochum. Nuremberg were denied a late equalizer against Mainz. Bochum should have taken the lead against Freiburg, but instead were punished with Freiburg’s winning goal in the 90th minute. Hertha meanwhile should have gotten a penalty against Cologne to get a more than deserved equalizer, while Hannover got a PK gift-wrapped to steal a point from Hamburg.

Hamburg’s Sick Bay. Hamburg’s two best strikers are now joined by their indisputably best player: Ze Roberto. A torn ligament will keep him out for at least the next game against Bochum. It threatens to once again become a season for Hamburg fans to contemplate all that could have been if only…

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Stuttgart coach Markus Babbel was happy to escape with a draw against Mönchengladbach. He can’t be happy with the lack of progress his team is making.

Hertha’s Plan for the Second Division. They better have one. No team with only 4 points after 12 matchdays has ever escaped relegation. It really saddens me to see what happened to the club and it’s also difficult to comprehend how much bad luck they are stacking up at the moment. Cologne had two shots on goal and some luck with close penalty calls. Hertha pretty much had everything else and lost. It’s safe to say that Hertha in their current shape would not be in such a misery. Hertha sealed their relegation earlier in the season – when the players were busy conspiring against their coach. Games like the one against Cologne are just the cherry on top.

Results: Leverkusen 4-0 Frankfurt, Bayern 1-1 Schalke, Hoffenheim 1-2 Wolfsburg, Bochum 1-2 Freiburg, Mönchengladbach 0-0 Stuttgart, Mainz 1-0 Nuremberg, Hannover 2-2 Hamburger SV, Hertha 0-1 Cologne, Bremen 1-1 Dortmund

Frankfurt’s Marco Russ and Maik Franz celebrate after the match against Bochum (2-1).

(Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Images)

With a couple of lazy days during the international week coming up, it’s time to take a look at how season number 47 of the Bundesliga is shaping up so far.

NEW: A slow start to the season.
Last season the Bundesliga stormed out of the gates all guns blazing, racking up an average of 3.11 goals per game after the first four matchdays. The ratio eventually dropped to around 2.92 as the season progressed, but by then the league had already successfully drawn our attention to a small village in southern Germany and eventually to the stories behind all the weekly changing table toppers. This season, we are looking at a rather subdued start with just 2.69 goals per game so far and the realization that Hoffenheim have turned into just another Bundesliga side. But who knows what kind of compelling narratives this season can come up with as we move along. I sure hope it’s better than just telling the story of Rib and Rob(TM) and how they guided Bayern to an undisputed Bundesliga title, made all the more drab by a coach, who already had two humor bypass operations.

SAME: Hamburg’s early season form.
Last season Martin Jol’s Hamburg delivered 10 points and 11 goals in 4 matches, the top of the table and the promise of exciting and successful football. This season Bruno Labbadia’s Hamburg delivered 10 points and 12 goals in 4 matches, the top of the table and the promise of exciting and successful football. Martin Jol couldn’t quite deliver on that promise. As it turned out Hamburg had already scored 1/4 of their Bundesliga goals for the season, leaving not much room for the remaining fixtures and what little room was left was filled with way too many longballs. But Martin Jol had to do without the likes of Eljero Elia and Ze Roberto, so maybe there’s hope for a more successful campaign under Labbadia.

NEW: Hamburg’s early first half form.
Martin Jol’s Hamburg made a name for themselves as the undisputed comeback kids of the league, after his team came back from being 2-0 down in three of their four matches. This season it’s up to Hamburg to challenge the other club’s comebackability, as they usually only need three minutes for their first goal and between the 15th and 20th minute the opposition is already on a one-way street to defeat. A much more charitable attitude in the second half, means that Hamburg are not yet undisputed title candidates though.

SAME: Bayern’s “worst in…” season starts.
With just two points from three matches and an embarrassing defeat at the “Stadium at the Riven Path” in Mainz, Louis van Gaal had even one-upped Jürgen Klinsmann’s habit of producing worst ever/since results for the Bavarian giants. It was the worst start to a season since 1966 to be precise and without it, we may have never seen Arjen Robben in the Bundesliga so kudos to van Gaal.

NEW: Al Pacino pep talks.
How do you make an unfancied team like newly promoted Mainz beat Bayern Munich for the first time in most people’s memories (and those who claim to remember a Mainz victory probably also only think they do remember one, while it really never happened)? By letting Al Pacino do all the pre-game talking for you, as Mainz’s coach Thomas Tuchel did and then he just had to sit back and watch his team play the Bavarians off the park for 45 minutes.
 

 
Tuchel said, that he had some more ideas on how to motivate his team and that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a movie all the time. Whatever it was he did prior to his team’s next match against Mönchengladbach though, it didn’t work out at all and Mainz lost by two goals and two goalkeepers.

NEW: Wolfsburg’s first halves.
Wolfsburg were second best in the first 45 minutes of their matches against Stuttgart, Cologne, Hamburg and Bayern. Their firepower was enough to steal all three points from Stuttgart and Cologne, stage a brief comeback against Hamburg and threaten to equalize against Bayern in the second 45 minutes. Armin Veh argued that being defending champions means, his team could no longer counter attack as often and freely as last season. He also seems to want his team to find out for themselves, what to do instead and it usually takes one or two goals by the other team until they get a vague idea.

NEW: A large gaping hole at Bremen’s back.
Werder Bremen are currently giving the Weserstadion a little make-over and are using the opportunity to straighten the curves and remove the last remnants of the running track, leaving one end of the stadium wide open. Meanwhile, that large gaping hole in Bremen’s defense stayed the same, as exactly €0 were invested in defensive reinforcements in the summer. That’s my Werder.

SAME: Cologne’s lifeless and bloodless team.
Last year this fact was brushed over by an angry man filled with adrenaline running up and down the sidelines trying to transfer some of his surplus energy onto the team. This man is now in Turkey and was replaced by the quiet Zvonimir Soldo and his mute assistant Michael Henke. And if anything, they’ve at least helped to identify the problem.

SAME: Refereeing discussions.
Lively arguments about goal-line technology, video reviews, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th officials and whether someone’s grandma could have spotted that offside position make 2009/2010 feel very much like 2008/2009.

NEW: Refereeing decisions.
There have already been four matches without any cards whatsoever compared to a total of six matches last season. Could be a coincidence but the referee in the Hamburg – Cologne match also looked like handing out a yellow card would be the worst thing he could do during the match (while in reality he couldn’t have done any worse than allowing Hamburg to score two irregular goals). Maybe there’s been some internal agreement to optimize the number of cards shown during the matches – whether it has any positive side-effects remains to be seen though. And there are good news for the players as well, as arguing with the referee might actually and finally bear some fruits. Schalke’s Benedikt Höwedes was successfully argued out of a red card by his team mates and Hamburg’s Frank Rost even one-upped that by convincing the ref that a goal scored against him was offside.

SAME: Hertha’s win-lose formula.
0 points = Hertha play well and lose.
1 point = Hertha play badly but at least don’t concede a goal / Hertha play well but can’t score.
3 points = Hertha play badly, don’t concede a goal and Kacar scores in the 88th minute.

NEW: Hertha’s defense.
Josip Simunic went looking for rural excitement but all he did was exposing Arne Friedrich as his waterboy, incapable of wearing the captain’s armband and stabilizing a defense at the same time.

SAME: Jens Lehmann.

NEW: Stuttgart’s heavy rotation.
Give Stuttgart coach Markus Babbel some cash and a place in the Champions League and he suddenly feels like he is in Liverpool again and needs to constantly rotate every available player, coach and green keeper in and out of the starting eleven. Just 5 points from a possible 12 mean that’s not yet working out all that well for him.

SAME: Felix Almighty.
Felix Magath may have switched clubs and reduced his financial scope, but he quickly made sure, there aren’t too many people left interfering with his decision making at Schalke – with (ex-)president Josef Schnusenberg being the latest casualty. All this hasn’t turned the club into title contenders yet as Schalke pulled off a vintage 08/09 performance that ended in a 1-0 defeat to Freiburg on Saturday.

NEW: Freiburg, Nuremberg and Mainz.
Their task is to replace Bielefeld, Cottbus and Karlsruhe and as far as the football is concerned they are a definite improvement. While they all lack Bundesliga-grade firepower up front, their overall gameplan and tactical approach is quite sophisticated. How much of that will remain intact over the course of a season-long fight against relegation remains to be seen though.

SAME: Ze Roberto.
Supposedly one year older, but you couldn’t tell.

NEW: Eintracht Frankfurt’s Swagger.
A few years ago Eintracht Frankfurt were a broke diva commuting between the first and second division, with distant memories of better Bundesliga days the only thing fans could hold on to. Along came Heribert Bruchhagen and Friedhelm Funkel with their vision of an office clerk Pygmalion transformation and they succeeded. Out went the debts, the yoyo and the dreams and in came the health insurance, cubicle and the promise of a two-week holiday in Brazil once the 30 year mortgage on the stadium has been paid back. For a few seasons Eintracht fans thought this was all well and nice and solid, but as time went by, more and more realized there could be nothing more depressing than watching a football team mirroring your boring life for you every second Saturday. Thus Friedhelm Funkel had to go and Michael Skibbe, of all coaches, was assigned the task bring the fun back to Frankfurt. Oddly enough, he has succeeded so far with an away victory over Bremen, a should-have-been-a-victory-if-not-for-the-ref against Dortmund and 90 minutes which more often than not look like football again. The team will most probably still end up somewhere in the greyish depths of midtable mediocrity but the fans will still think that it hadn’t been more fun finishing 13th in quite a while.

SAME: Incomplete lists.
So feel free to add your own observations via the comments.

Please send your fake takeover applications to admin@nufc.co.uk and the real ones to daryl[at]theoffside[dot]com.

Update: Just as I write this post the Borussia Dortmund Offside goes up for auction as well. If you are more the romantic type who can do without the successful and without the wealthy then this is a blog for you.

Update 2: I should have taken a little look around before writing this as there are even more team blogs available: Leverkusen Offside, Muklenblacklen Offside and Eintracht Frankfurt Offside. Blog for two of them and we’ll give you the third one for free.

Update 3: I think I see the pattern emerging, so it’s easier to just say that the Hamburg Offside, Cologne Offside, Bayern Offside, Bochum Offside, St. Pauli Offside and Hertha Offside are the only team blogs currently not looking for a new blogger.

For everyone else it’s season 46 episode 34 of the Bundesliga. We’ve already been served 2970 minutes high on excitement and low on answers – the latter will have to be packed into the upcoming 90 minutes. Who’s going to win the title, who will qualify for the Champions and Europa League, who is going down, what is the smoke monster and what lies behind Felix Magath’s wry smile? The league’s script writers have promised us answers to at least half of these questions.

vs Bundesliga Report 2007/2008: The above numbers add up to a combined revenue of €1527,6m, while the official revenue reported by the Bundesliga is €1566,931m. This might have to do with Bayern Munich. Bayern Munich were co-owners of the Allianz Arena but recently bought the shares held by 1860 Munich. In turn Bayern released two revenue figures: the one quoted above and one + Allianz Arena which is roundabout €40m higher. In that case the revenues of the 17 other clubs are more or less correct. The Bundesliga also reported that 15 of 18 clubs turned a profit as compared to 18 of 18 in the previous season. So three clubs from the above list must have had a negative result.

vs Deloitte Football Money League Deloitte further “correct” their numbers by excluding none football related income as well as one offs like transfer fees.

Warning: Revenue figures of football clubs are like possession stats after a football match. A team dominating possession doesn’t necessarily win the game and isn’t necessarily the better team. After all, Manchester City were ranked 20th in Deloitte’s money league but are the richest club in the world…

The 2. Bundesliga revenues of the three clubs promoted to the Bundesliga: Borussia Mönchengladbach (Turnover €68,7m, Profit €6,8m), FC Cologne (€42,6m, Loss €2,27m), TSG Hoffenheim (Turnover €24m, Loss €5,2m)

Bonus
Turnover 1. Bundesliga 2007/2008: €1566,931m (€1456,783m in 2006/2007, +7,3%)
Turnover 2. Bundesliga 2007/2008: €367,508m (€291,032m in 2006/2007, +23,3%)
Turnover Bundesliga 2007/2008: €1934,439m (€1747,815m in 2006/2007, +10,7%)

Combined debt: €469,453m (€510,323m in 2006/2007)
Wages to Turnover Ratio: 40%

***
Friday

[22.00] Schalke 1-0 Cologne
Schalke scored a brilliantly strung together team goal. Schalke played 90 minutes of football, which at no point suggested that the team has the ability to score such a great goal. Cologne was on the pitch as well and had decided that long balls and free kicks ought to be enough for the night. In the last 10 minutes they eventually realized how nervous, inapt and insecure their opponent actually was and tried a little harder to equalize – which they almost did. All things considered it was an abysmal match.

What was far more interesting than the action on the pitch was the reaction of the Schalke fans in the stands. It took only 20 minutes until the fans were at the end of their tether and started booing their team. After 28 minutes Jermaine Jones scored the lead, which calmed the crowd down a little bit. For the rest of the match eerie silence took turns with occasional boos and more pronounced boos (i.e. during substitutions). It was a good night for Kevin Kuranyi though, as he wasn’t booed individually but only as part of the team. When the game had finished the Schalke players reacted by skipping their obligatory visit to the curve. Well, Schalke are probably the only team in the league who wished they had more away games.

***
Saturday

[02.15] Match reports of the Friday night game are up: Schalke Offisde – Cologne Offside.

[02.35] A couple of previews for today’s matches: Hoffenheim Offside vs Bremen Offside, Mönchengladbach Offside vs Hamburg Offside, Bayern Offside vs Hanover Offside, blogless Cottbus vs Hertha Offside, Wolfsburg Offside vs blogless Karlsruhe and Stuttgart Offside vs Dortmund Offside.

[03.00] Countdown: whoever scores first today will have scored the 43000th goal in the history of the Bundesliga.

[06.00] Franck Ribery is out injured today. We’ll have to make do with this singing/jumpsuit wearing performance for our fix of Ribery entertainment this weekend.

[06.40] Drumroll: goal number 43000 has been scored by Stuttgart’s Brazilian midfielder Élson.

[08.35] A double debacle for the Bundesliga’s HSVs and no new team at the top of the table (and no new team at the top of table next week either)…

Cottbus 1-3 Hertha
Cottbus lived up to their bogey team tag in the first half. They put Hertha under pressure and a Drobny blunder worthy of only happening against a bogey team gave them the lead. Cottbus seemed to be on a good way to continue their success story against Hertha. But this season things are just a little bit different. Cottbus had the chances, Hertha converted theirs. And by half-time Hertha (aka Andriy Voronin) had turned the match around. As we by now expect from Hertha, they kept the game open until almost the last minute before Voronin completed his hat trick with a great solo goal.

Bayern 5-1 Hanover
Another crisis at Bayern countered with five goals, but because it’s such a cherished Bundesliga tradition this season, they let the guests score first. Hanover looked like a contender for worst ever team at defending corners and free kicks. The title for worst ever away side is already theirs. Lo and behold: Lukas Podolski played from the beginning and scored a goal. This was HSV debacle number 1.

Mönchengladbach 4-1 Hamburg
And here is HSV debacle number 2. Hamburg probably shouldn’t have shown such a pronounced interest in Marko Marin in the winter, because he felt like giving a job interview today. Instrumental in setting up two goals, scored one himself from the spot and generally ran the show for Mönchengladbach. Frank Rost said about his team’s performance in the midweek cup game against Wiesbaden, that they won’t have a chance against Gladbach if they play like that again – he was right. Big win for Mönchengladbach, who will now go into a relegation triple header with games against Cologne, Bochum and Karlsruhe coming up. After those matches we’ll probably have an idea, whether they can stage a great escape or not.

[09.00] And here’s what happened elsewhere in Germany:

Hoffenheim 0-0 Bremen
This game could have just as well ended with nine goals like the first game between the two teams six months ago. Bremen are still waiting for their first win in the Bundesliga this year. Hoffenheim haven’t won since January.

Wolfsburg 1-0 Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe have been Wolfsburg’s bogey team, but VW’s millions have finally bought them their first ever victory against the leagues new worst team. Karlsruhe weren’t the worse side today, but even as the better team they couldn’t convert their chances.

Stuttgart 2-1 Dortmund
The 43000th goal in the history of the Bundesliga and Mario Gomez’ 43000th goal for Stuttgart seal the victory for a yet unbeaten Markus Babbel – in the Bundesliga; let’s better forget about the club’s performances in the DFB and UEFA Cup.

[09.30] And this is how the table currently looks like (ripped from here):

Props to Hamburg for their goal difference of +/- 0. In a way that’s quite an achievement. Oh, and a small correction to the above table: Bayern and Hoffenheim are joined second.

[09.50] The photo of the weekend straight from the Allianz Arena and beautifully open to interpretation.

[10.50] Two more match reports are up: Bayern Offside and Mönchengladbach Offside.

[13.50] Another drumroll for the DFB-Pokal semi-final draw:
Hamburg vs Bremen
Leverkusen vs Mainz
There goes my Northern Derby for the final, but a Northern Derby after all. Leverkusen look like a sure bet for the final. Mainz are a good side – fighting for promotion to the Bundesliga – but without home advantage it’ll be very difficult to stage an upset.

***
Sunday

[11.30] Time to wrap up matchday 23.

Leverkusen 1-1 Bochum
After their impressive DFB-Pokal victory over Bayern, I predicted: “Now that they played so well again, another nosedive in the league can be expected pretty soon.” All my wrong predictions meanwhile will of course remain hidden deep in the archives of this blog. Leverkusen again looked impressive on paper – i.e. possession and shots on target stats, but on the pitch they needed a stupid handball + penalty to at least draw the match. Bochum continue their fine form this year.

Bielefeld 0-0 Frankfurt
A good result for Mönchengladnach is all I can say about this match.

* though this season has yet to show any signs of being normal.

***
Saturday

[07.35] This edition is a bit late. I was out on Friday and could only catch up with yesterday’s match this morning (by Peru standards very early morning).

Cologne 1-1 Bielefeld
In the first half both teams were kicking the ball up and down the field, in the second half they did it mostly without a ball. The first half was quite watchable and the second half was not. Cologne could have and should have and so on and so forth. Bielefeld get a valuable point away from home. It was a good feeling being a supporter of a stereotypical jo-jo club, and yet having the distinct feeling that you’ve outgrown all of your direct competitors in a matter of just six months – I’m not talking about Bielefeld.

For an in depth review head over to our fierce rivals from Bundesliga Talk.

[08.30] Looking ahead to today’s fixtures: Hertha and Hoffenheim will both try to reclaim the top of the table. Hoffenheim need a win. Hertha need a win and they need help from Dortmund. Meanwhile Toni Kroos may/could potentially give his debut for Leverkusen against Hanover – probably as a sub for the last 10 minutes.

Some previews/press conference quotes/injury updates from the: fearless Hannover Offside, tricky Leverkusen Offside, searching Hoffenheim Offside, confident Schalke Offside, victorious Frankfurt Offside, revengeful Dortmund Offside and challenged Mönchengladbach Offside.

[08.30] A quick first look at two of the more important results. More to follow a few hours later, when I’m back home.

Dortmund 0-0 Hoffenheim
This game had absolutely everything except for goals. Dortmund with their ninth draw at home this season. Hoffenheim now with three draws in four matches this year. Both somewhat depressing statistics.

Hertha 2-1 Mönchengladbach
Berlin raced into a 2-0 lead at half time, then were outclassed in the second half and once again hung onto the lead like only Hertha can. Really quite a strange team but they’ve taken over the top of the table again.

***
Sunday

[12.55] Well, this will be a rather short running commentary. Anyway, another weekend has come and gone and we have a change of guard at the top once again.

Hamburg 1-3 Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg is officially Hamburg’s bogey team. Wolfsburg also continue to be Bayern’s little helper, as they very consistently beat every of Bayern’s direct competitors and very consistently hand Bayern all six points each season. Seems we can expect more of the same for the rest of this season as well. Wolfsburg scored two early goals, both of which Hamburg were a bit unlucky to concede. The first was a trademark Edin Dzeko dive, made a bit less outrageous by the fact that there was a little bit of shirt tugging by Aogo. But when in doubt I’ll always judge against Dzeko. He needs to do quite some fair play work to come close to my good books again. The second goal though was a good counter attack by Wolfsburg. Hamburg were still unlucky, as Demel ruptured a muscle and couldn’t defend the attack. Wolfsburg did well to defend that lead. Hamburg came back into the match for two minutes, before another counter attack killed the game. I guess we have to welcome Wolfsburg to the title race. Or rather, you have to do it. I despise and hate this club.

Hamburg remain second in the table with a goal difference of just +3. Haven’t seen such an odd combination in a while.

[14.00] Time to wrap up the other big Sunday game

Bremen 0-0 Bayern
Angela over at the Bayern Offside has a very detailed match report up already. At the end of the day, the best both teams will get out of this match are a few clips for the highlight reels of their goalkeepers. Bremen were reduced to 10 men after just 15 minutes, so maybe they can be a bit happier with the result. Though, both teams had actually enough chances to win it and Bremen compensated being down one man for so long really well.

***
The Table never lies

[19.30] To wrap up this weekend and to get a few more Bundesliga teams a mention, which were excluded for non-title race relevance and time constraint purposes, here’s a quick look at the table:

Hertha reclaimed the top spot and now lead the table with 43pts ahead of Hamburg (42pts), Hoffenheim (41pts) and Bayern/Wolfsburg (39pts). The way this season is going, it’s difficult to decide whether all, one or none of these teams is seriously in the title race. So in theory Leverkusen and Stuttgart (36pts) might be the ones duking it out for first and second come matchday 34. Leverkusen are in a crisis though, after losing 1-0 against Hanover, while Stuttgart remain unbeaten in the Bundesliga – beat KSC 2-0 – this year and may have a better momentum going for them than Leverkusen. Schalke with 34pts is only 9pts behind Hertha and could be a dark horse bet as well. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think that this is a complete list of all potential title candidates this season.

I will now completely ignore the midtable section to take a quick look at the relegation zone. For now, I’ll start it with Bochum in 14th place with 21pts. In theory Frankfurt and Hanover could be candidates as well, but I’m a bit more certain about which teams might get relegated than about which team might win the title, so I left them out. Bochum won a six pointer against Cottbus this weekend (3-2) thanks to one of those lovely controversial penalty decisions – or better Sestak dived and the ref bought it. Cottbus were furious. Bochum philosophized about eternal justice, after being denied a clear penalty last weekend.

Arminia Bielefeld and Cottbus follow with (20pts), while Karlsruhe (17pts) and Mönchengladbach (16pts) are currently the two clubs, who would win the ticket back to the second division at the end of the season.

I modified the format a bit and introduced timestamps. Due to the time-zone spanning super-global nature of this blog, I decided to feature a different timezone each week. In honor of one of our most frequent commenters, I’ll start with Singapore Standard Time (SST, i.e. CET +7h).

***
Friday

[00.45 Sat] The 133rd Revierderby will kick off this Bundesliga weekend and was it ever more meaningless? Schalke could sink into an even bigger crisis, Dortmund could sink even further back into mid-table mediocrity after what looked like a promising season so far.

Tucker over at the Dortmund Offside has the latest on his team’s difficult injury situation. Porter over at the Schalke Offside is looking for revenge, or rather: he’s quoting people looking for revenge.

[05.50 Sat] Schalke 1-1 Dortmund. Kevin Kuranyi sent in his submission for goal of the season and now scored two goals in the last two matches. He was also guilty of giving away a great chance to score a potentially match winning second goal – just for the old times sake! Schalke were mostly in complete control of the match and it took Dortmund 50 minutes to register their first real chance. It then took Dortmund just 20 minutes to turn the match upside down, equalize and almost run away with an unlikely victory. This result helps neither of the two teams and both could lose more ground depending on tomorrow’s (today’s in Singapore) matches.

This derby won’t take a prominent place in football’s history books, but this Kuranyi goal will make it into the odd YouTube football compilation video in the future.

***
Saturday

[00.25 Sun] It’s a snail race at the top of the table. Bayern lose against Cologne (1-2). Hertha lose against Wolfsburg (same scoreline). Hoffenheim can only draw against Stuttgart (3-3) but go top on goal difference (+18). Bayern are denied a regular goal. Hertha are denied a regular goal. Wolfsburg score an irregular goal. Bayern would have liked a penalty (up for discussion). Hoffenheim miss a last minute penalty. Not a bright day for the Bundesliga’s referees. Hamburg could take advantage tomorrow against Leverkusen, but the way things went so far I would now expect them to lose, just to make it even more close.

[00.30 Sun] And here’s another one for statistic freaks: Christoph Daum had never managed to win against Bayern Munich in Munich until today. Took him 23 years.

[01.05 Sun] Stuttgart – Hoffenheim aftermath: Mario Gomez scored his 23rd and 24th goal in his 31st game for Stuttgart this season. Demba Ba scored a hat trick; an English hat trick, not a German one which requires three consecutive goals.

[01.30 Sun] Things remain close at the bottom of the table and miserable in the mid-table section. Cottbus beat Bremen 2-1 with a last minute goal and book their second consecutive home win, climb up the table and are determined to once again defy all odds and stay in the Bundesliga one more season. Bremen drop down to 11th and are trailing the Europa League spots by a full nine points – the same goes for the relegation play-off spot…

Borussia Mönchengladbach keep feeding this season’s highlight reel with another great Alexander Baumjohann goal. More importantly though, they for once also got a full three points by beating Hanover 3-2. Karlsruhe lost against Frankfurt (0-1). Bielefeld and Bochum shared the points (1-1). Gladbach remain at the bottom of the table, but the relegation play-off spot is only two and safety three points away now.

[01.50 Sun] Bayern fans probably expected an easy win against Cologne and a tough away game against Bremen next week. It could end up being the other way round.

[05.00 Sun] Prior to their match against Bremen, Cottbus were looking for volunteers to help clear the pitch and stadium of snow. In return Cottbus offered a warm drink and a free ticket for the match against Bremen. 30 people showed up to help out, which bumped the attendance number for the match from 14750 to 14780.

***
Sunday

[22.45] A headband on wednesday. A shoe on Saturday. Jens Lehmann is on a roll and should soon own a complete set of football equipment.

[02.00 Mon] Leverkusen 1-2 Hamburg. Another week, another table topper. Hamburg register their first big win away from home.

[02.10 Mon] Patrick Helmes keeps chasing Vedad Ibisevic with this stunning goal from nothing.

[02.15 Mon] Leverkusen tried to pass the ball to victory again. Hamburg tried their luck with long balls and both approaches proved to be equally effective in the first half (1-1). After taking the lead again, Hamburg were granted more space and started to pass the ball around a bit more as well. The resulting counter attacks and chances were all woefully wasted though. They unnecessarily kept the game open until the end.

[02.35 Mon] Man of the match: Marcell Jansen who scored both goals for Hamburg. He seems to be on his way to his old Mönchengladbach self again, which earned him his €12m move to Bayern.
Cameo of the match: Jerome Boateng, came on after 60 minutes, didn’t perform too well, got booked twice and sent to the showers after 86 minutes. It’s not his season.