Running Commentary: Bundesliga Matchday 20
By: Jan | February 13th, 2009A running commentary of the weekend’s Bundesliga action. Feel free to share your thoughts via the comments.
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Friday
Trivial pre-match stats: Hoffenheim have lost four out of five top of the table clashes. Hoffenheim will play four of those five top of the table clashes at home in the second half of the season. Hoffenheim are the best home team of the league. Leverkusen are the second best away team of the league. Hoffenheim are in danger of being overtaken by Hertha or Bayern. Leverkusen are in danger of dropping out of the title race and the European spots.
Hoffenheim 1-4 Leverkusen
Hoffenheim’s defense had a “used day” to adopt a German expression into the Bundesliga Offside vocabulary. Leverkusen had Patrick Helmes and also a bit of luck with the second goal, which didn’t look 100% legit. Hoffenheim had some decisions go their way against Cottbus and Mönchengladbach as well, so this balances things out nicely. Stefan Kiessling proved that he’s the perfect replacement for Kevin Kuranyi in the national team. Boubacar Sanogo proved that he’s not the perfect Ibisevic replacement.
Bayern or Hertha could now overtake Hoffenheim in the table tomorrow. With Hertha missing Cicero, Kacar, Pantelic and a whole bunch of other players, it’s difficult to imagine that they will actually get any points from their game though.
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Saturday
Required reading – pre-match previews from our team bloggers: Angela has a lot of options for Jürgen (Bayern), Abby more or less ignores the big/small brother issues behind the match for a change (Hertha), “if you’re desperate and everything just seems to go wrong, you need to play Bochum next saturday” (Bochum), A world of injuries for Bochum, a world of possibilities for Fred Rutten (Schalke), Ollie tries to keep track of the health of all his players (Frankfurt), “Wolfsburg is a painful-to-watch travesty (…)” (Wolfsburg), Stuttgart will try to take Hanover’s home fortress under Jens Lehmann’s leadership (Hanover), Groundhog day for Stuttgart (Stuttgart), must win for Geißböcke (Cologne), must find Karlsruhe blogger (Karlsruhe), Jackson admirers Mönchengladbach’s siege mentality (Bremen), Otto knows no fear (Mönchengladbach)
Historic pre-match stats: No Swiss coach has ever managed to beat Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. It’s been 22 years since Mönchengladbach last beat Bremen in Bremen. Karlsruhe have beaten no other Bundesliga team more often than Cologne.
Legally dubious viewing options: Here.
Berlin 2-1 Bayern
Wow. Lucien Favre is the first Swiss coach to beat Bayern in the Bundesliga. Hertha have never before topped the Bundesliga table in the second half of the season. Thus it’s a historic victory for all statistic freaks. And to quote myself: “With Hertha missing Cicero, Kacar, Pantelic and a whole bunch of other players, it’s difficult to imagine that they will actually get any points from their game though.”
Bayern can dominate a match and create chances like no other team in the league. So they should still do fine against most Bundesliga sides, but their defence will prematurely knock them out of the Champions League.
Bochum 2-1 Schalke
Schalke just can’t get their season sorted out. Bochum win the small Revierderby and now earned six points from their first three matches in the second half of the season compared to eleven points in the whole first half of the season.
Bremen 1-1 Mönchengladbach
Bremen: see Schalke, with the exception that Bremen really, really tried everything to win this game. Mönchengladbach: A brilliant performance by their new goalkeeper Logan Bailly earned them the point, while Michael Bradley completed, what the NYT called, a trans-atlantic hat trick. A draw away against Bremen is a good result but a win at home against Hanover next week is must. Gladbach’s competition currently seems to be making all the big points.
Frankfurt 0-2 Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg finally break their away jinx. Thanks to Frankfurt’s all around poorness they only needed an average performance and a few penalty decisions going for and not against them.
Hanover 3-3 Stuttgart
Stuttgart took a 2-0 lead. Hannover took a 3-2 lead. Stuttgart remembered Hamburg’s fate last week, reacted and Hitzelsperger made it 3-3. Exciting match according to the highlights.
Cologne 0-0 Karlsruhe
Cologne didn’t score a goal. Karlsruhe didn’t score a goal. Forgettable match according to me, though I switched back and forth between this one and the Hertha – Bayern match – which BTW was also forgettable at times – so maybe I accidentally missed all the exciting bits.
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Sunday
Pre-match: Hamburg can overtake Bayern again and if they weren’t such a bunch of !#*%?$, they could have even put a full four points between them and the Bavarians. Dortmund can put three points between them and Schalke before Friday’s game of the year.
Hamburg 2-0 Bielefeld
Bielefeld’s Dennis Eilhoff pulled a Rensing and misjudged a Trochowski free kick. Hamburg’s Alex Silva pulled a Gravgaard and conceded a stupid penalty. Artur Wichniarek pulled a Hertha and missed the penalty. Olic pulled an Olic – the old highly ineffective marathon Olic. Overall, a lot of snow, not so much football and this:
Dortmund 1-1 Cottbus
Dortmund fans are proud to announce that this was draw no. 8 in 11 home games this season.
Some Related Bundesliga Posts:
Category: Bundesliga
Comments
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At the moment it is 4-1 to Leverkusen. As it stands Jan, Leverkusen are still in contention for a European spot.
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Just finished watching the Hertha-Bayern match. Oh my god, oh my god. Hertha are at the top of the standings. I admit, in the wake of Hoffenheim being thrashed by Leverkusen, I was secretly rooting for Hertha to beat Bayern to go top of the league standings.
The commentator on the match I was watching was saying something like (after Andriy Voronin scored his second in the match) that if Voronin continues to be like this, Liverpool will want him back.
With Liverpool’s current striking situation, they will want to bring Voronin back even more. -
I think Voronin would still only be a bench player at Liverpool. The thing is though, that Liverpool might have a couple of clubs interested in Voronin’s signature after this season and then Hertha simply won’t be able to match the other bids.
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Officially craziest season ever. Officially.
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Then enjoy this officially craziest season ever then, Abby.
Even I myself still cannot believe it at times that it is actually Hertha Berlin…at the top of the standings.‘Thus it’s a historic victory for all statistic freaks.’
Like me. I was reading the historic pre-match stats in regards to the Hertha-Bayern match prior to kick-off and when I refer to it back again after the match was over, I was like, ‘Whoa’. Lulu now has the honour of being the first Swiss coach to beat Bayern in the Bundesliga. -
“Lulu now has the honour of being the first Swiss coach to beat Bayern in the Bundesliga.”
I think every Swiss citizen is happy now, that they finally got rid of that blemish.
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‘Dortmund fans are proud to announce that this was draw no. 8 in 11 home games this season.’
Goodness. I only know Dortmund had drew quite a number of times at home. But not that much.Found this from The Telegraph website. About Hertha being at the top – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/european/4631315/Andrey-Voronin-fires-Hertha-Berlin-to-top-of-Bundesliga-with-win-over-Bayern-Munich.html
It stated in the report – ‘Hertha had not beaten Bayern in Berlin since 2001 and the victory took them top for the first time since October 2006.’. Even more stats for you, Jan.
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quote: Forgettable match according to me, though I switched back and forth between this one and the Hertha – Bayern match – which BTW was also forgettable at times – so maybe I accidentally missed all the exciting bits.
Response: you didn’t
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