Matchday 17: Autumn Champions

When the temperatures drop to minus 10 to 20 degrees Celsius, when the pitches are frozen and the snow is falling and when Christmas is right around the corner, then you know that it’s time to crown he Bundesliga’s Autumn Champions (Herbstmeister). If you think this term came about in days past when the Bundesliga did indeed go into the break in autumn, then you are wrong. The first half of the season always ended around December. This additional contradiction is pretty much all I can add to the origins of the term though. The meaning and relevance is entirely virtual of course. There is no trophy or monetary bonus connected to it. The only thing you can be sure of is, that whenever you invent a title in German football, no matter how pointless it is, then Bayern Munich are keen to win it. And at least statistically and perhaps psychologically there is a reason why Bayern want it so badly. Sixty seven percent of all Autumn Champions also won the Bundesliga. One prominent exception have been Bayer Leverkusen, who won the Autumn Championship in 2001 and who now have 17 games to fight their own history.

Leverkusen. Leverkusen are undefeated, have the best offense and joined best defense. It’s safe to say they deserve to be in top spot. It’s also safe to say, that they struggled a bit with a supposedly easy run in. They were fortunate to snatch draws against Hannover and Hertha and were made to work very hard for their three points in their 3-2 win over Mönchengladbach – who admittedly posed the other top teams similar problems recently. Glass half-empty people as well as Bayer’s competition, could or may want to see it as early signs of a trademark Neverkusen choke. Optimists and Bayer fans will take the facts that Leverkusen either fought back or held on to at least a point, as signs that the team is stable enough to get something out of those difficult games as well. During the winter break three key players are set to return to the first team with Rolfes, Augusto and Helmes, who should give the team a further boost for the second part of their (title) campaign.

Schalke. Felix Magath’s current primary objective is to balance the books, and thus he has been busy polishing his established up-for-sale stars and experimenting with young talents who can follow in their foot steps. A comfortably narrow 1-0 victory over Mainz on Friday secured Schalke’s second place in the table – which almost appears to be like a welcome yet unexpected byproduct of Magath’s revamping process. And slowly but surely you can also spot hints of beauty in Schalke’s game, courtesy of summer signing Lewis Holtby, who provided two great assists in Schalke’s last two games and after a slow start seems to be finding his feet at Schalke.

Bayern. From being considered to be on the verge of prematurely sacking another coach, Bayern transformed into the team to beat in the Bundesliga. One Italian giant in crisis, in the wrong place and at the wrong time sent Bayern’s season into the right direction. The eventual outcome of Bayern’s match against Hertha was one of the few entirely predictable Bundesliga games so far this season. Bayern fans will hope that they can improve on their current momentum even further when Ribery and Robben return for the second half of the season. Everybody else will hope that Luca Toni wasn’t the last Bayern player to publicly fall out with Louis van Gaal.

Hamburg. It took Werder Bremen 19 days to ruin everything for Hamburg last season. On Sunday they made amends by bringing a vintage Werder offside trap, we all thought was a thing of the past, and a lack of clinical finishing to Hamburg. The eventual 2-1 victory over their arch-rivals puts a happy end to a difficult first half of the season for Hamburg. They are still in contention for the title and will fancy their chances, when their injury ravaged squad is somewhat complete again next year. Werder Bremen have now been dumped out of the European places altogether after losing two consecutive matches against direct competitors and will look forward to the winter break to recharge Mesut Özil’s batteries.

Dortmund. Somewhat overshadowed by Bayern’s revival, Dortmund vastly improved on their poor start to the season and step by step snuck up the table. A 1-0 victory over Freiburg on the club’s 100th birthday moved Dortmund onto a Europa League spot with the top of the table a mere five points away.

Elsewhere. Stuttgart made an important step out of the relegation zone with a deserved 3-1 victory over Hoffenheim. Dieter Hoeness takes charge of buying Brazilian players for Wolfsburg. Cologne’s 3-0 victory over Nuremberg saved Zvonimir Soldo’s job and cost Michael Oenning his.

Results: Schalke 1-0 Mainz, Bayern 5-2 Hertha, Dortmund 1-0 Freiburg, Leverkusen 3-2 Mönchengladbach, Hannover 2-3 Bochum, Frankfurt 2-2 Wolfsburg, Stuttgart 3-1 Hoffenheim, Hamburg 2-1 Bremen, Cologne 3-0 Nuremberg

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Category: Bundesliga