Running Commentary: Bundesliga Matchday 22

A running commentary of the weekend’s Bundesliga action. Feel free to share your thoughts via the comments. This weekend all times will be Peru Time (PET, CET -6h), in honor of Werder Bremen’s man of the match against Milan: Claudio Pizzarro.

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Saturday

[07.35] This edition is a bit late. I was out on Friday and could only catch up with yesterday’s match this morning (by Peru standards very early morning).

Cologne 1-1 Bielefeld
In the first half both teams were kicking the ball up and down the field, in the second half they did it mostly without a ball. The first half was quite watchable and the second half was not. Cologne could have and should have and so on and so forth. Bielefeld get a valuable point away from home. It was a good feeling being a supporter of a stereotypical jo-jo club, and yet having the distinct feeling that you’ve outgrown all of your direct competitors in a matter of just six months – I’m not talking about Bielefeld.

For an in depth review head over to our fierce rivals from Bundesliga Talk.

[08.30] Looking ahead to today’s fixtures: Hertha and Hoffenheim will both try to reclaim the top of the table. Hoffenheim need a win. Hertha need a win and they need help from Dortmund. Meanwhile Toni Kroos may/could potentially give his debut for Leverkusen against Hanover – probably as a sub for the last 10 minutes.

Some previews/press conference quotes/injury updates from the: fearless Hannover Offside, tricky Leverkusen Offside, searching Hoffenheim Offside, confident Schalke Offside, victorious Frankfurt Offside, revengeful Dortmund Offside and challenged Mönchengladbach Offside.

[08.30] A quick first look at two of the more important results. More to follow a few hours later, when I’m back home.

Dortmund 0-0 Hoffenheim
This game had absolutely everything except for goals. Dortmund with their ninth draw at home this season. Hoffenheim now with three draws in four matches this year. Both somewhat depressing statistics.

Hertha 2-1 Mönchengladbach
Berlin raced into a 2-0 lead at half time, then were outclassed in the second half and once again hung onto the lead like only Hertha can. Really quite a strange team but they’ve taken over the top of the table again.

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Sunday

[12.55] Well, this will be a rather short running commentary. Anyway, another weekend has come and gone and we have a change of guard at the top once again.

Hamburg 1-3 Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg is officially Hamburg’s bogey team. Wolfsburg also continue to be Bayern’s little helper, as they very consistently beat every of Bayern’s direct competitors and very consistently hand Bayern all six points each season. Seems we can expect more of the same for the rest of this season as well. Wolfsburg scored two early goals, both of which Hamburg were a bit unlucky to concede. The first was a trademark Edin Dzeko dive, made a bit less outrageous by the fact that there was a little bit of shirt tugging by Aogo. But when in doubt I’ll always judge against Dzeko. He needs to do quite some fair play work to come close to my good books again. The second goal though was a good counter attack by Wolfsburg. Hamburg were still unlucky, as Demel ruptured a muscle and couldn’t defend the attack. Wolfsburg did well to defend that lead. Hamburg came back into the match for two minutes, before another counter attack killed the game. I guess we have to welcome Wolfsburg to the title race. Or rather, you have to do it. I despise and hate this club.

Hamburg remain second in the table with a goal difference of just +3. Haven’t seen such an odd combination in a while.

[14.00] Time to wrap up the other big Sunday game

Bremen 0-0 Bayern
Angela over at the Bayern Offside has a very detailed match report up already. At the end of the day, the best both teams will get out of this match are a few clips for the highlight reels of their goalkeepers. Bremen were reduced to 10 men after just 15 minutes, so maybe they can be a bit happier with the result. Though, both teams had actually enough chances to win it and Bremen compensated being down one man for so long really well.

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The Table never lies

[19.30] To wrap up this weekend and to get a few more Bundesliga teams a mention, which were excluded for non-title race relevance and time constraint purposes, here’s a quick look at the table:

Hertha reclaimed the top spot and now lead the table with 43pts ahead of Hamburg (42pts), Hoffenheim (41pts) and Bayern/Wolfsburg (39pts). The way this season is going, it’s difficult to decide whether all, one or none of these teams is seriously in the title race. So in theory Leverkusen and Stuttgart (36pts) might be the ones duking it out for first and second come matchday 34. Leverkusen are in a crisis though, after losing 1-0 against Hanover, while Stuttgart remain unbeaten in the Bundesliga – beat KSC 2-0 – this year and may have a better momentum going for them than Leverkusen. Schalke with 34pts is only 9pts behind Hertha and could be a dark horse bet as well. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think that this is a complete list of all potential title candidates this season.

I will now completely ignore the midtable section to take a quick look at the relegation zone. For now, I’ll start it with Bochum in 14th place with 21pts. In theory Frankfurt and Hanover could be candidates as well, but I’m a bit more certain about which teams might get relegated than about which team might win the title, so I left them out. Bochum won a six pointer against Cottbus this weekend (3-2) thanks to one of those lovely controversial penalty decisions – or better Sestak dived and the ref bought it. Cottbus were furious. Bochum philosophized about eternal justice, after being denied a clear penalty last weekend.

Arminia Bielefeld and Cottbus follow with (20pts), while Karlsruhe (17pts) and Mönchengladbach (16pts) are currently the two clubs, who would win the ticket back to the second division at the end of the season.

Category: Matchdays

Tags: Matchdays

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