10 Things we learned from Matchday 30

By: Jan | April 29th, 2008

1. Only math stands in Bayern’s way now.
Bayern beat Stuttgart 4-1 on Sunday. Angela blogged about how it happened and then Anna blogged about why it happened. Now I blog about how Bayern top the table with a 12 point lead. 20 goals stand between them and Werder Bremen. 24 goals stand between them and Schalke 04. With four remaining matches, there is still a purely hypothetical chance for both Bremen and Schalke to clinch the title. Stuttgart’s coach Armin Veh couldn’t wait any longer though and prematurely congratulated Bayern on their title win. More pedantic people will have to wait for the match against Wolfsburg next weekend - or possibly even longer.

2. Werder Bremen break a record.
And it comes with a complete lack of surprise, that it’s a goal scoring related record. Former Schalke youngster Mesut Özil scored his first (flukey) Bundesliga goal against Karlsruhe on Saturday. He was Bremen’s 19th player to score a goal this season. No other team in the history of the Bundesliga had 19 different goal scorers in one season. Yet, all this attacking versatility was once again coupled with defensive clumsiness and the match ended 3-3.

3. Kevin Kuranyi could break a record.
It’s his own Bundesliga goal scoring record. He never scored more than 15 goals a season. His early and winning goal against Hamburg, in the otherwise anti-climactic/anti-quality Champions League showdown, was his 15th of the season and now he has four more games to break his record. Or maybe it just means that Kuranyi won’t score any more goals this season.

4. Bremen and Schalke closed in on the Champions League.
Bremen’s draw with Karlsruhe and Schalke’s 1-0 victory over Hamburg were enough to open a six point lead over their three Champions League competitors. Bremen still have to travel to Hamburg and Leverkusen though.

5. Hamburg have collapsed.
Hamburg’s assessment center is still busy trying to find the perfect coach. Meanwhile, all the good coaches join other clubs or renew their contracts. Huub Stevens has the health of his wife to worry about. Rafael van der Vaart needs to decide where in Spain he wants to earn his money in the future: Valencia, London or maybe Milan? Little details, which might or might not have a negative impact on the team. Maybe Hamburg were playing beyond their means and are now back on planet Earth. Hamburg died a slow death during the second half of the season and more in depth forensic analysis is needed.

6. Leverkusen have semi-collapsed.
Wolfsburg were very lucky to draw the corporate derby against Leverkusen (2-2). But Leverkusen were again anything but convincing. Except for Rene Adler who is in excellent form (for the Euros?). Leverkusen, Hamburg and Stuttgart now form an UEFA Cup/Intertoto Cup trio with 48 points each.

7. Cottbus will probably stay in touch with the outside world for one more season.
Cottbus comes from the Sorbian Chóśebuz which means “pretty houses”. And maybe they have pretty houses in Cottbus. Few really dare to find out. The city lies in the far east of Germany close to the Polish border, and isn’t the first choice destination of the travelling support of other Bundesliga clubs. Energie Cottbus isn’t the first choice destination of many people in Cottbus either. Maybe because they are enjoying their pretty houses so much. Fact is, Energie Cottbus’ Stadium of Friendship only rarely enjoys a sell out crowd. There were only three sell out crowds since returning to the Bundesliga. Two of them were against Bayern, the third now came courtesy of an extra 3000 Hansa Rostock fans, who came to Cottbus for a crucial relegation six-pointer. And Cottbus won the game 2-1, after being one nil and one man down, handing the team a five point lifeline at the bottom of the table.

8. Duisburg keep scoring wonder goals - keep getting closer to relegation.
Duisburg’s players have a knack for scoring high quality goals. Those goals just aren’t enough to move Duisburg out of the relegation zone. This week Claudiu Niculescu scored a great goal from a free kick to make it 1-0 against Bochum. Sestak later equalised for Bochum to keep Duisburg at the wrong end of the table. The smaller clubs don’t receive a lot of love from this blog, and to change this a little bit, here’s a highlight reel of some of the goals Duisburg scored in the second half of the season - right up to Blagoy Georgiev’s beauty against Schalke.

9. Nuremberg are too dumb to stay up.
Nuremberg played host to relegation rival Bielefeld and stormed to a 2-0 lead at half time, just to give up the lead in the second half again. A demoralising draw sees them two points away from safety - coincidentally now enjoyed by Bielefeld. At least they will visit another demoralised team next week: Borussia Dortmund.

10. There could be a back door to Europe for Hertha.
Hertha drew their third match in a row and videos of those matches are now being used by teachers to explain the term mid-table. The complete meaninglessness of those matches also had a positive impact on Hertha’s yellow and red card statistics. Joe Simunic now rather blunders embarrassingly than getting send off embarrassingly. There is a chance that Hertha are topping the DFL’s internal Fair Play Ranking - which also takes other things into account, like the behaviour of the fans, so it’s hard to tell exactly. The Bundesliga is among the eight leagues with the highest UEFA Fair Play score. The highest ranked Bundesliga team will take part in a lottery with teams from the other leagues. With a bit of luck all teams from the Bundesliga Offside could play in Europe next season.

Abby doesn’t like the thought of it. She doesn’t feel the squad has the depth to compete in Europe and in the Bundesliga at once. Dieter Hoeneß likes the thought of it. Where it = money.