BUNDESLIGA, Round 25

The highlight of this round is Germany’s most passionate fixture, the famed “Revier-derby”. Schalke showed that they’re on the rebound with a deserved 2-1 win over bitter rival Borussia Dortmund. The Blues were the dominant side in the first half, when the Neons were basically sleeping. They grabbed a solid lead, and Dortmund’s improved effort in the 2nd half was in vain. Youngster Julian Draxler once again impressed for the Blues, although Huntelaar suffered a knee injury that could end his miserable season – which had been looking up recently. This was the 142nd edition of the derby, 82 in the Bundesliga.

Bayern München domainted Fortuna Düsseldorf, as expected. However Fortuna GK Fabian Giefer was brilliant, almost bringing the Bayern attackers to tears. What’s even more impressive is that Düsseldorf used their counter-attacks to take the lead twice. bayern wasted a lot of opportunities, and of course Giefer was stopping everything else, so it looked like a major upset. But in the end the runaway leaders got a header from Jerome Boateng to decide the match.

A stunning result in Freiburg, where Wolfsburg bitch-slapped the Breisgauers. SCF is one of the high-flying surprises, and jumped out to dream start, Kruse scoring in the 2nd minute. But then 5 minutes later Makiadi headed into his own goal, and the VWs took full advantage to rip their hosts. Ivica Olic did most of the damage, his best match since being cast out from Bayern last summer.

An entertaining match in Mainz, where the hosts edged Leverkusen. Both sides had their moments, but the ref decided the match when deciding on a handball. For Mainz, it’s nice to get a win after some ho-hum outings. The Aspirins were unable to take advantage of Dortmund’s slip, and have to be leaving frustrated – but they didn’t do enough to get a win anyway.

Augsburg continues to fight hard, but had a disastrous result in a Bavarian derby with Nürnberg. The Fuggers actually dominated much of the match, but der Club was a lot more inteliigent. They let the Fuggers run around like chickens with their heads cut off, and despite gifting a goal (Rafael Schaefer had a hilarious Manuel Neuer-esque moment as he dropped a header and it went through his legs), FCN was ready to pounce on opportunities and grabbed the win.

A somewhat surprising result in Fürth. The Greuther had been fighting hard recently, and could be expected to get a result against the most gutless squad in the Bundesliga, Hoffenheim. Instead, for once the Hoppers, who actually have some talent, showed up and played hard – and they easily smashed a crap Greuther side. With Augsburg taking a dump as well, perhaps not all is lost for the Hoppers.

Gladbach and Bremen have been all over the place this season, so you never know what you’re going to get. Werder showed some defensive discipline for change, Gladbach controlled the match but was way too static. The result is that the visitors fully deserved their point.

Boring match in Hannover, neither 96ers nor Frankfurt get anything going. Eintracht is slipping, they haven’t scored in over 500 minutes. The positive was that they reached 1,000 point mark in their Bundesliga career. Hannover has scored well this season, but didn’t look like they wanted to be here.

Largely crap match in Stuttgart that was decided by Artjoms Rudnevs volley blast from 13 meters. Neither team really deserved to win, yet alone call themselves Bundesliga sides for this one.

Total attendance this week 378027 (avg 42,003), sellouts in Augsburg, Bayern, Schalke and Gladbach.

 	
FC Augsburg	       -   1. FC Nürnberg	  1:2 (1:1)   30,660 *

                      0:1  Kiyotake (21., Esswein)
                      1:1  Werner (36., Hahn)
                      1:2  Esswein (54., direct freekick)

Bayern München	       -   Fortuna Düsseldorf     3:2 (1:1)   71,000 *

                      0:1  Bolly (16., Lambertz)
                      1:1  T. Müller (45., Lahm)
                      1:2  Lambertz (71., O. Fink)
                      2:2  Ribery (73., Pizarro)
                      3:2  Boateng (86., Lahm)

FC Schalke 04	       -   Borussia Dortmund      2:1 (2:0)   61,673 *

                      1:0  Draxler (11., Uchida)
                      2:0  Huntelaar (35., Uchida)
                      2:1  Lewandowski (59., Blaszczykowski)

SC Freiburg	       -   VfL Wolfsburg	  2:5 (1:3)   22,900

                      1:0  M. Kruse (2., Schuster)
                      1:1  Makiadi (7., own goal, Rodriguez)
                      1:2  Vieirinha (16.)
                      1:3  Olic (22., odriguez)
                      1:4  Olic (49., Fagner)
                      2:4  Flum (65., Makiadi)
                      2:5  Diego (90. + 2, Olic)

1. FSV Mainz 05	       -   Bayer 04 Leverkusen    1:0 (0:0)   30,124

                      1:0  Ivanschitz (61., penalty)

SpVgg Greuther Fürth   -   1899 Hoffenheim	  0:3 (0:2)   15,760

                      0:1  Roberto Firmino (10., Weis)
                      0:2  Joselu (16., Volland)
                      0:3  Weis (50., Joselu)
	
Borussia M'gladbach    -   Werder Bremen	  1:1 (0:0)   54,010 *

                      1:0  Mlapa (72., Wendt)
                      1:1  Ignjovski (77., de Bruyne)


Sunday:

Hannover 96	       -   Eintracht Frankfurt    0:0 (0:0)   44,800

VfB Stuttgart	       -   Hamburger SV           0:1 (0:0)   47,100

                      0:1  Rudnevs (50., Diekmeier)




 1  Bayern München	  	25    21   3   1      67:10  +57     66 
 2  Borussia Dortmund (M, P)	25    13   7   5      55:30  +25     46 
 3  Bayer 04 Leverkusen	  	25    13   6   6      45:32  +13     45
 4  FC Schalke 04	  	25    11   6   8      43:40  +3      39
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 5  Eintracht Frankfurt (N)	25    11   6   8      38:35  +3      39 
 6  Hamburger SV	  	25    11   5   9      30:33  -3      38 
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 7  1. FSV Mainz 05	  	25    10   7   8      33:29  +4      37
 8  SC Freiburg	  	        25     9   9   7      32:28  +4      36 
 9  Borussia M'gladbach	  	25     8   11  6      34:35  -1      35 
10  Hannover 96	  	        25    10   4   11     47:45  +2      34 
11  1. FC Nürnberg	  	25     7   10  8      26:32  -6      31 
12  VfL Wolfsburg	  	25     8   6   11     29:39  -10     30 
13  Werder Bremen	  	25     8   5   12     40:49  -9      29 
14  VfB Stuttgart	  	25     8   5   12     26:43  -17     29 
15  Fortuna Düsseldorf (N)	25     7   7   11     31:35  -4      28
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16  FC Augsburg	  	        25     4   9   12     22:38  -16     21
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17  1899 Hoffenheim	  	25     5   4   16     30:49  -19     19 
18  SpVgg Greuther Fürth (N)	25     2   8   15     14:40  -26     14
	
M = Meister, defending Champion
P = Pokal, defending Cup winner
N = Neuling, newly promoted

1st line: Champions League
2nd line: Europaliga (+ Cup winner)
3rd line: Playoff with 2.Liga 3rd place
4th line: Relegation to 2.Liga

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