Matchday 13: Time to move a bit closer together and have a Title Race

By: Jan | November 12th, 2007

Snow in Berlin It’s buckling the trend time in the Bundesliga. So much so in fact, that I’ll do my whole matchday report in form of buckled trends.

~~Global Warming~~
Global warming forwent Berlin and the first snow of the year ensured that Hannover and Hertha could brush over deficiencies in their game, by claiming that the pitch conditions didn’t allow for more, well, football. Andre Lima scored two offside goals. One was given, thus Berlin won 1-0. Lucien Favre’s experimental squad is now just two points away from a UEFA Cup spot, which is quite an accomplishment.

~~Bayern Munich are Invincible~~
Unsurprisingly they are not. Though who would have seen that one coming? Probably those who saw Bayern draw their last three matches (minus a DFB Cup victory over second division side Mönchengladbach), and who think that playing football on Thursday and Saturday is a bad idea. Though, who would have thought that of all teams, it had to be Stuttgart to play the Bavarians off the park? Probably those who went to live under a rock after Stuttgart’s title win, or those who always excused poor performances with injuries of key players. 3-1. Lucio will miss the rest of the year after being handed a four match ban for his red card.

~~The Title Race is a One Horse Race~~
It’s safe to call it a three horse race now, it probably already had been one last week. And who knows, maybe Stuttgart can go on a winning streak, and Bayern lose another match, and another match, and another match. Admittedly, a full nine points still separate Bayern and Stuttgart, but it’s good to see that the title holder doesn’t look like a cheap imitation of last season’s Hamburg disaster.

~~First rule of the Bundesliga (minus Bayern) is: you do not talk about the title~~
Second rule of the Bundesliga (minus Bayern) is: you DO NOT talk about the title.
And while Thomas Schaaf and Huub Stevens never tire to preach this mantra, as they fear uncontrollable consequences to the player’s psyche and ego, the rule has been nonetheless broken by Bremen’s Diego and Hamburg’s Rafael van der Vaart.

~~1,33 Goals per Match ought to be enough for Anybody~~
But a solid 3,0 goals per match on average this weekend were much more fun to watch, than the goal drought of two weeks ago. That’s 27 goals in 9 matches. Four of them provided by Werder Bremen against Karlsruhe, two of those scored by Diego, both excellent efforts.

~~You don’t score Goals with your Penis~~
Mario Gomez apparently did. And that’s the biggest news, the tabloid paper Bild presented to it’s readers (not that I’m one of them…) today: “The first goal to be scored with a Penis”, had indeed been scored. The web edition claims “This Goal was Geni(t)al”, where genial is the German word for ingenious.

If you don’t like reading gutter press in the language of Nietzsche and Netzer, you can check out Raphael Honigstein’s matchday recap written in the language of Shakespeare and Shearer, which tackles the same subject.

~~Schalke draw all their Games~~
Wait.

Schalke draw all their Games
So not every team can go against the trend. Not every team is meant to play a part in this season’s title race either.

For more coverage of this weekend’s action you can also check out the Bundesbag’s matchday recap.