Matchday 10: We’re Chasing Bayern on a Moped

By: Jan | October 23rd, 2007

Bochum - Bayern That’s how Karlsruhe’s coach Ede Becker described the club’s situation in the title race, after they claimed the second place in the table two weeks ago. And Karlsruhe’s moped dropped two points against Bielefeld and had to make way for Bremen’s and Hamburg’s moped gang to keep Bayern within eyespot.

And Bayern, to get this bit out of the way, won their match away at Bochum 2-1. Bochum had actually taken the lead, before Ribery managed to equalise later in the first half. They even had a few good chances to make it 2-0. A fluke goal by Schweinsteiger in the second half then sealed Munich’s victory. It was well deserved, as the Bavarians were clearly the better and more dominant team, but in times like these I wouldn’t mind unjustified defeats. Nice try by Bochum.

Historic Wins for Bremen and Hamburg
Hugo Almeida scored Bremen’s 2500th Bundesliga goal. Joris Mathijsen scored Hamburg’s 2500th Bundesliga goal. Both teams won their matches against Berlin (3-2) and Stuttgart (4-1) respectively. Since everybody keeps repeating that it’s a shame, that Bayern isn’t playing in the Champions League, I might also say, that it’s a shame Hamburg isn’t playing in the Champions League, instead of Stuttgart.

Further down the Spiral
So, Stuttgart is continuing to decompose. The 4-1 scoreline might already be telling, though it fails to acknowledge that Hamburg clearly took their feet of the pedal in the second half, to save energy ahead of their UEFA Cup away match. If they had continued to play like in the first half (3-0), it might have ended in an even worse disaster for the title holders. So far there has only been one Bundesliga champion, that got relegated the season after the title win - Nuremberg in 1969. Nuremberg had accumulated more points after matchday 10 than Stuttgart - 11 vs 10.

Schalke’s Manuel Neuer provides a few Seconds for the next Goalkeeper’s Blunder Compilation on YouTube
Though, until then you have to do without video evidence of his accident. I couldn’t find it anywhere. In short, he planned to roll the ball to Rafinha but instead a Rostock player picked it up and scored the equaliser (1-1), and the score stayed this way until the end. Another draw for Schalke means, they now drew five out of ten matches. Probably doesn’t hurt as much as loosing matches, but it’s the slow painful death of their title campaign. Maybe they can draw their away match against Chelsea as well then. That would be a good result for a change.

If you need more short insights for the other matches, and a quick overview of the current league table head over to Chris’ matchday recap over at Bundesliga Talk.