Round 25, Mar 13-15
Not a good round for bottom dwellers, as they all got owned this weekend.
First up is the worst, Stuttgart. VfB got smashed in Leverkusen, and looked absoultely horrible. Well, technically, they looked OK, because they have these cool black jersies that I hadn’t seen before. But as far as their play, the first goal pretty much describes it. A cross came into the box, one defender tried to clear but only succeeding in kicking off his fellow defender’s face. Luckily the ball bounced out of the danger area, but two Stuttgart players just ran past the ball, so an Aspirin picked it up and knocked a long shot into the goal. Easy win for Bayer, it’s hard to imagine that Stuttgart can recover, given their chaos on the field and incompetancy in the board. (In fairness, the new leadership is cutting costs, as VfB has had a couple of terrible financial years)
Next up, Paderborn. They sucked. Frankfurt ripped them to shreds, an easy win. SCP looked like a relegation candidate, the luster of their great season start only a distant memory. The highlights of the match were another goal by Alex Meier, and a goal by Nelson Valdez, who had left the Bundesliga in 2010 after some success with Bremen and then less-success with Dortmund. The Paraguayan international had been out for 8 months with an injury, so you’d have to say it was a successful comeback.
Freiburg was worthless as Wolfsburg had no trouble. The VWs were basically attacking at will, especially Chelsea castoff Kevin de Bruyne, who is quickly becoming one of the best attacking midfielders in Europe. The Breisgauers had a few chances to draw level when the match was still open, but overall should consider themselves lucky they didn’t get a worse hiding.
Hamburg also sucked, as they were taken apart by Hoffenheim. Things were basically over when after 20 minutes GK Drobny got his ass tossed for a foul, and HSV couldn’t recover. The Hoppers took their time, but eventually wrapped things up with a scoreline that reflects their dominance.
Hertha at least got a point. The Berliners were in a difficult match with Schalke, and benefited from some weak goal-keeping by Schalke’s youngster Wellenreuther. The visitors seemed to have more of the play, but needed a last minute header by Matip to salvage a point. Overall, probably a fair result, and Hertha keeps their head above the drop zone.
Bremen deserves some kudos for attempting to slug it out with Bayern München, but all they did was receive an ass-kicking. bayern looked sharp when they needed too and mercilessly took advantage of any Werder breakdown. The host side wasn’t really to create any worthwhile chances either, so the result is predicatble.
Dortmund gave a rather listless performance against Köln. Now in earlier rounds they might have managed to lose this, so I guess you could say they’ve improved. It was the usual, they dominated possesion and created chances, but wasted them. Newcomer Deveryson especially – he had two huge chances to win. But in the end, a disappointment for the Neons, a nice point for Köln.
Gladbach dominated early against Hannover, but the 96ers had a few moments in the 2nd period as they tried to fight back. But down the stretch the hosts were superior again, and get a deserved win to maintain 3rd place.
Mainz is very unpredicatble, and this week they were spot on. Ironically, it was at Augsburg, one of the toughest road matches in the league. FSV was disciplined, and the Fuggers were basically banging their heads against the solid Mainz defensive wall. The visitors then struck on counters for a great away win.
Total attendance 391,448 (avg 43,499), 94.2% capacity, sellouts in Hoffenheim, Bremen, Dortmund
Bayer 04 Leverkusen - VfB Stuttgart 4:0 (2:0) 29,384
1:0 Wendell (32.)
2:0 Drmic (36., Hilbert)
3:0 Bellarabi (50., Castro)
4:0 Drmic (59., Calhanoglu)
FC Augsburg - 1. FSV Mainz 05 0:2 (0:1) 28,359
0:1 Okazaki (32., de Blasis)
0:2 Koo (89.)
TSG Hoffenheim - Hamburger SV 3:0 (1:0) 30,150 *
1:0 Polanski (22., penalty, Schipplock)
2:0 Polanski (81., Schwegler)
3:0 Rudy (87., Volland)
Hertha BSC - FC Schalke 04 2:2 (1:1) 59,156
1:0 Ben-Hatira (21., Stocker)
1:1 L. Sané (40., Huntelaar)
2:1 Haraguchi (81., Stocker)
2:2 Matip (90., Fuchs)
Werder Bremen - Bayern München 0:4 (0:2) 42,100 *
0:1 T. Müller (24.)
0:2 Alaba (45., direct freekick)
0:3 Lewandowski (76., . Müller)
0:4 Lewandowski (90. + 1, T. Müller)
Eintracht Frankfurt - SC Paderborn 07 4:0 (2:0) 46,000
1:0 Meier (27., Stendera)
2:0 Stendera (42., Meier)
3:0 Aigner (55., Inui)
4:0 Valdez (82., Inui)
Borussia Dortmund - 1. FC Köln 0:0 (0:0) 80,667 *
VfL Wolfsburg - SC Freiburg 3:0 (1:0) 26,538
1:0 De Bruyne (19., Rodriguez)
2:0 Rodriguez (78., penalty, De Bruyne)
3:0 Arnold (85., De Bruyne)
Bor. Mönchengladbach - Hannover 96 2:0 (1:0) 49,134
1:0 Herrmann (43., Hazard)
2:0 Herrmann (75., M. Kruse)
1 Bayern München (M, P) 25 20 4 1 70:11 +59 64
2 VfL Wolfsburg 25 16 5 4 56:28 +28 53
3 Bor. Mönchengladbach 25 12 8 5 35:20 +15 43
4 Bayer 04 Leverkusen 25 11 9 5 44:29 +15 42
--------------------------------------------------------------------
5 FC Schalke 04 25 11 6 8 37:30 +7 39
6 FC Augsburg 25 12 2 11 33:32 +1 38
--------------------------------------------------------------------
7 TSG Hoffenheim 25 10 6 9 40:38 +2 36
8 Eintracht Frankfurt 25 9 7 9 48:49 -1 34
9 Werder Bremen 25 9 6 10 40:53 -13 33
10 Borussia Dortmund 25 8 6 11 31:31 0 30
11 1. FSV Mainz 05 25 6 11 8 34:35 -1 29
12 1. FC Köln (N) 25 7 8 10 25:31 -6 29
13 Hannover 96 25 7 6 12 27:39 -12 27
14 Hertha BSC Berlin 25 7 5 13 30:44 -14 26
15 Hamburger SV 25 6 7 12 16:36 -20 25
--------------------------------------------------------------------
16 SC Paderborn 07 (N) 25 5 8 12 23:50 -27 23
--------------------------------------------------------------------
17 SC Freiburg 25 4 10 11 24:36 -12 22
18 VfB Stuttgart 25 4 8 13 24:45 -21 20
M = Meister, defending Champion
P = Pokalsieger, Cup winner
N = Neuling, just promoted
