10 Things we learned from Matchday 26

By: Jan | March 31st, 2008

Diego 1. Nothing.
The teams at the top of the table couldn’t win their games. The teams at the bottom of the table didn’t lose their games. As such no team gained a lot of ground, nor did any team lose a lot of ground. And when the six best teams in the league don’t do their job properly, chances are that the football on display was pretty bad as well. And that was indeed the case. The midtable Revierderby between Bochum and Dortmund had to provide most of the entertainment and goals, but as it ended 3-3, nothing changed for those two teams either.

2. Bayern can’t complain.
Bayern maintained their seven points lead and are cruising to the title. And you can’t blame them. Bayern did their best to hand their rivals chances to catch up with them or even overtake them in the table this season. But no one showed any interest. Nuremberg put up a performance, which should be encouraging for the team and their fans, while Bayern can be happy that they got away with a sloppy 1-1 draw. The biggest news from a Bayern perspective was probably the fact that Lukas Podolski announced his return to Bundesliga goal-scoring after an absence of over one year.

3. First Bremen way dying in beauty and now they are just dying.
Bremen lost too many matches in the past weeks, but at least they did so in style. Now they’ve added bad football to their defeats, which makes those defeats much more believable. Duisburg’s win could have been all the sweeter if it wasn’t for all their competitors bagging points as well. But I mentioned this already.

4. Tim Wiese doesn’t know how to set up a wall.
The only point of this wall, which led to Duisburg’s first goal, was to block Tim Wiese’s view. Well done (jump to 1:37m for the free kick).

5. Hamburg gain a microscopic advantage.
Hamburg drew 8 of their last 11 Bundesliga matches. Quite a depressing stat, especially when you consider that this type of performance is enough to secure the second place in the table. Hamburg only managed a draw at home against Bielefeld and yet, thanks to Bremen and Leverkusen both losing their matches, they actually gained a three point advantage over their Champions League rivals. A very tough away game against Stuttgart is up next though, which could see Hamburg’s lead evaporate to 0 points.

6. David Jarolim likes to play with balls.
And sometimes this is a really stupid thing to do.

This got him a red card, which makes it 3 red cards in two matches for Hamburg. And the football Hamburg are playing is crap as well at the moment - while I’m at it.

7. Schalke go third and nobody knows why.
And our new Schalke blogger can’t help answering this question, since he couldn’t watch the games recently. He didn’t miss out. Schalke now got that precious third Champions League spot though. A job saver for Mirko Slomka. A 0-0 draw against Karlsruhe - the better team over 90 minutes - was enough.

8. Leverkusen get 0 out of 3 penalties.
Leverkusen had three close penalty calls all going against them, as well as two goals by Frankfurt, who are now in seventh place and only three points behind third placed Schalke. If the season continues like this, we could have teams in next season’s Champions League, who aren’t yet ready for this competition. Which would be just like this season actually /sarcasm.

9. Wolfsburg are the best Bundesliga team in 2008.
With 20 points from 9 matches, earning them the 8th place in the table and chances for the UEFA Cup (hell, they are only five points away from the Champions League). Credit where credit is due, albeit very reluctantly.

10. Stuttgart add the finishing touches to an odd matchday.
Stuttgart played out an uninspired 0-0 draw against Hanover, are level on points with Frankfurt, gained nothing and lost nothing, are still in the race for everything, have a six pointer against Hamburg coming up next and have a new blog here at the Bundesliga Offside to cover it all: VfB Stuttgart Offside