The Numbers Game: Matchday 9
By: Jan | October 19th, 2009It wasn’t a good weekend for exciting football. It was a good weekend for exciting numbers. Or rather, a good weekend for those who can find numbers exciting.
619. Tim Wiese has kept a clean sheet for 619 minutes and counting. Remember, he did so while playing for Werder Bremen. Any other season this would have equalled setting the difficulty to legendary. This season though, Werder Bremen’s defense has gone through a remarkable transformation – testing the boundaries of plausibility. It’s still an amazing achievement. During this weekend’s 2-0 victory over Hoffenheim, Wiese even saved a penalty, earning him extra style-points.
Tim Wiese has now surpassed goalkeeping legends Jens Lehmann (Schalke 04 / 1996/97 / 601 minutes) and Uli Stein (HSV / 1985/86 / 603 minutes) to make it into the Bundesliga’s All-Time Top 5 and is 23 minutes away from breaking the record of another famous Werder Bremen goalkeeper. The team which will try to deny him next weekend will be VfL Bochum.
315. Bayern’s goalless streak lasted 315 minutes and was ended by Thomas Müller, 42 minutes into Bayern’s match against Freiburg. That’s pretty much all you need to know about Bayern’s performance.
8. Hertha’s abysmal defense helped Nuremberg to a comfortable 3-0 victory and Hertha to a club record 8th Bundesliga defeat in a row. Hertha have now tied Wuppertaler SV’s 8 consecutive defeats (1974/75) and are two defeats short of the Bundesliga’s All-Time Top 3 comprising Arminia Bielefeld (1999/2000), Nuremberg (1983/84) and the officially worst Bundesliga side ever Tasmania 1900 Berlin (1965/66). None of the clubs mentioned here escaped and were relegated. Judging from current form, you must wonder why exactly Hertha should be the exception.
26. Hertha’s defense has conceded 26 goals in 9 matches. Last season, Hertha’s defense had conceded 26 goals after 22 matches.
83. Leverkusen’s central defender Sami Hyypiä won 83% of his one-on-one situations. The other 17% accurately reflect the total amount of chances Hamburg managed to create throughout the match.
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Category: Data
Comments
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Man, was that Leverkusen – Hamburg match a snore-fest. Yikes. I watched it beginning at 1130PM on Saturday night and had to fast-forward through it at times because my eyes were slamming shut. HSV’s attack without Petric and Guerrero really stunk.
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I think the main advantage Guerrero and Petric had over Berg and friends was their great ball retention under pressure. This would allow attacks to go on and give Hamburg a second chance to find an opening. Berg is still too “lightweight”, especially mentally, and lost a lot of balls this way. Schalke are an equally defensively drilled team as Leverkusen, so that away game could be very difficult. Going from there Hamburg have four relatively easy fixtures. Those four games will imho decide whether Hamburg can somehow hang on to the top and escape to the winter break, or whether their season collapses early.
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