BUNDESLIGA, Round 7

Dortmund showed who was boss right at the start against Freiburg, who seem to have completely fallen off the wagon. The Neons might have struggled in this match last season, but their continual pressure bore fruit and they broke through. Frieburg didn’t help themselves by Diagne getting red and a penalty just before the half. In the 2nd period, no chance for the visitors.

Bayern had a difficult time with Wolfsburg, as the VWs played solid defense and absorbed Bayern’s ball control. In the end the hosts broke through for a largely deserved win, but a relatively good performance for Wolfsburg, which hasn’t been noted for defensive prowess.

Leverkusen kept pace with the leaders, and easily handled Hannover. They make up the triumvirate that has already opened up a gap with the rest of the league. From what the 96ers showed, the Aspirins aren’t going to be too worried about Hannover catching up. As far as the match itself, it was pretty ho-hum, decided at half, and the hosts coasted.

Wild shootout in Hoffenheim, where Schalke seemed to have the game well under control with a fine 1st half performance. However the hosts came out blazing and launched furious attacks after the restart, erasing the deficit. Both teams went for the win, and it seems like a draw is the correct result.

Augsburg had most of the play as they pressed in front of enthusiastic home crowd, but Gladbach was clever and had the Fuggers chasing their tails. In the end FCA got the deserved goal, and a fair result.

Mainz started brighly, with midfielder Nicolai Müller notching his 7th goal. But Mainz has sucked and their lameness continued. This loss in Berlin is the first time in Thomas Tuchel’s regime that they’ve dropped four in a row. Hertha made adjsutments at halftime, and bringing on ex-Mainzer Sami Allagui proved to be a stroke of genius by coach Jos Luhukay. The much travelled forward (BV Büderich, Fortuna Düsseldorf, Alemania Aachen, RSC Anderlect, KSV Roeselare, Carl Zeiss Jena, Spvgg Greuther Fürth, Mainz, now Hertha) knocked in a pair to set Berlin on the way to a deserved victory.

Frankfurt dominated against HSV, but they have nobody to blame that they didn’t win. Instead, whenever they got the lead, they dicked around and allowed Hamburg to come back. New coach Bert Van Maarwijk couldn’t have been too happy with HSV’s quality, but he’ll love the outcome, as he’s all about getting the result.

Stuttgart got just what the doctor ordered to get better: a nice dose of Braunschweig. It was a clever performance, something VfB hasn’t been known for recently. They let the hosts run around and pretend they were in charge. Then they got bored and just kicked Braunschweig in the balls a few times and took all the points.

Finally, yet another wild shootout in Bremen. Nürnberg is still looking for their first win, but they showed great spirit in fighting back and getting a point. Werder had a chance to to blow open the game early, but basically they don’t know what they’re doing. So as a result, werder continues unable to beat Nürnberg, something like five straight tries.

Total attendance was 390,066 (avg 43,352), sellouts in Dortmund and München

 	
FC Augsburg	        -   Bor. M'gladbach	2:2 (1:1)   30,352

                       1:0  Hahn (27., To. Werner)
                       1:1  M. Kruse (33., Nordtveit)
                       1:2  Hrgota (71., M. Kruse)
                       2:2  Milik (88., Hahn)

Borussia Dortmund       -   SC Freiburg	        5:0 (2:0)   80,000 *

                       1:0  Reus (35., Lewandowski)
                       2:0  Reus (45. + 2, penalty, Lewandowski)
                       3:0  Lewandowski (58., Reus)
                       4:0  Lewandowski (70., Hofmann)
                       5:0  Blaszczykowski (79.)

Bayern München	        -   VfL Wolfsburg	1:0 (0:0)   71,000 *

                       1:0  T. Müller (63., Ribery)

Bayer 04 Leverkusen     -   Hannover 96	        2:0 (2:0)   25,198

                       1:0  Rolfes (23., Sam)
                       2:0  Sam (37., Son)

1899 Hoffenheim	        -   FC Schalke 04	3:3 (1:3)   29,139

                       0:1  K.-P. Boateng (3., M. Meyer)
                       0:2  Matip (13., Farfan)
                       1:2  Modeste (16.,Beck)
                       1:3  Höger (40., )
                       2:3  Roberto Firmino (48., penalty, Volland)
                       3:3  Abraham (61., direct freekick)

Hertha BSC	        -   1. FSV Mainz 05	3:1 (0:1)   40,969

                       0:1  N. Müller (8., Choupo-Moting)
                       1:1  Allagui (48., Ramos)
                       2:1  Allagui (73., Ben-Hatira)
                       3:1  Ben-Hatira (74., Skjelbred)

Eintracht Frankfurt     -   Hamburger SV	2:2 (1:1)   50,700

                       1:0  Flum (31., Aigner)
                       1:1  Lasogga (45. + 3, Calhanoglu)
                       2:1  Russ (54., Anderson)
                       2:2  Jansen (86., Arslan)

Sunday:
Werder Bremen	        -   1. FC Nürnberg      3:3 (2:1)   40,048

                       1:0  Dabanli (8., own goal, Garcia)
                       2:0  Elia (34., Hunt)
                       2:1  Kiyotake (44., Hlousek)
                       2:2  Drmic (53., Pekhart)
                       3:2  Elia (66.)
                       3:3  Hlousek (70., Kiyotake)

Eintracht Braunschweig	-   VfB Stuttgart       0:4 (0:1)   22,760

                       0:1  Ibisevic (40., Maxim)
                       0:2  Maxim (50., Traoré)
                       0:3  Traoré (76., Gentner)
                       0:4  Harnik (86., Traoré)



 1  Borussia Dortmund	  	7   6 	1   0 	  21:5 	 +16 	  19 
 2  Bayern München (M, P)	7   6 	1   0 	  14:2 	 +12 	  19 
 3  Bayer 04 Leverkusen	  	7   6 	0   1 	  17:7 	 +10 	  18
 4  Hannover 96	  	        7   4 	0   3 	  10:10   0 	  12
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 5  Hertha BSC Berlin (N)	7   3 	2   2 	  13:8 	 +5 	  11 
 6  VfB Stuttgart	  	7   3 	1   3 	  15:9 	 +6 	  10 
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 7  Bor. Mönchengladbach	7   3 	1   3 	  17:13  +4 	  10
 8  FC Augsburg	  	        7   3 	1   3 	   8:11  -3 	  10 
 9  Werder Bremen	  	7   3 	1   3 	   8:11	 -3 	  10 
10  1899 Hoffenheim	  	7   2 	3   2 	  18:18   0 	  9 
11  VfL Wolfsburg	  	7   3 	0   4 	   9:9 	  0 	  9 
12  1. FSV Mainz 05	  	7   3 	0   4 	  10:15  -5 	  9 
13  Eintracht Frankfurt	  	7   2 	2   3 	  10:12  -2 	  8 
14  FC Schalke 04	  	7   2 	2   3 	  10:16  -6 	  8 
15  1. FC Nürnberg	  	7   0 	5   2 	   9:12	 -3 	  5
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16  Hamburger SV	  	7   1 	2   4 	  12:19  -7 	  5
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17  SC Freiburg	  	        7   0 	3   4 	   8:17  -9 	  3 
18 Eintr. Braunschweig (N)	6   0 	1   5 	   3:14  -11 	  1



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

3 thoughts on “BUNDESLIGA, Round 7

  1. The penalty against Freiburg for the 2-0 was complete bull and it’s what broke their neck. I’m saying this as a Dortmund fan and they certainly have been on the receiving end of such calls last season, but this was ridiculous, even an a total amateur could see what Lewandowski did there.

    Much of the ref debate in Germany centers on handballs (maybe rightfully so, another area of arbitrary discretion), but when you have refs in a major top-level league give penalty kicks based on the the body shape of an experienced forward like Lewandowski (who knows exactly at what moment to develop a case of jello knees) you have to wonder why. For a major call like a penalty, either you see it, or you don’t. When in doubt, don’t give it.

    • I agree, there are lots of penalties given now that are very generous. Forwards feel the slightest touch and go down, and refs are ‘encouraged’ by FIFA to give penalties. (Because all we want to see is goals and not a good game!)

      Plus have they changed the laws recently? Handball is always ‘hand-to-ball’ and not ‘ball-to-hand’, but we see refs giving penalties and free kicks when the ball hits the Hand or arm, and when it isn’t given, commentators shout out that the ball hit the arm, it must be a Penalty! Well it isn’t! If I stand with my arms out, and do not move them, and then the ball is kicked against my arm, it is not Handball, it would only be Handball if I moved my arm towards the ball. That is what the Law states, but it seems everyone has forgotten this!

      As for stupid penalties, in the Darmstadt-Schalke game in the Cup, the ref gave a shocking Penalty to Schalke! (I’m a Schalke fan too!) The Goalkeeper came out, dived at Farfan’s feet and pushed the ball away. In the process Farfan tripped over the keeper. Instead of giving a Corner, the ref gives a Penalty! How?! even the commentator and Memhet Scholl said it was a clear Penalty, but for the life of me I can’t see why? The keeper cleanly and obviously won the ball!

      Soon Tackling will be outlawed and Football will become noncontact with scorelines of 11 to 10!

  2. Re: your points on handballs. Even most avid soccer people have never bothered to actually read the handball rule. It’s in fact shocking in its flexibility: a handball is an intentional handling of the ball. Nothing more, nothing less. (Whereby the “intentional” part is, of course, much harder to judge than the “handling” bit.) People don’t know this, so they go by hearsay. Because of this ambiguity, various governing bodies issue updated “guidelines” on how to interpret this rule: hand-to-ball vs. ball-to-hand; acceptable distance between shot and contact (taking into account the speed of the ball), “unnatural body shape” (as they say in Germany), and a lot of similar nonsense.

    Fact is: it’s still a matter of INTERPRETING whether there was “intention” or not. Uli Hesse did a great piece on this on Suckernet (espnfc.com), to a response of deafening silence. It’s as simple (and inconclusive) as you can possibly wish for:

    http://espnfc.com/columns/story/_/id/1375981/uli-hesse:-getting-a-handle-on-handball?cc=5901

    Re: soft penalties. I agree, as I already said in previous post. PKs are serious stuff, so better be sure. What I’m not so sure I agree with, is the general direction of your post, Adam. The “oh-my-no-more-contact-sport” line has been ridden by English/British media for quite a while. What’s missing are dirty fouls, often in the midfield, meant to take the piss out of technical players, “psychological fouls” (e.g. stamping on players on the ground), and the rest of the hard-man’s arsenal. This stuff needs to be punished with the full force of the available rules. (I don’t hear many calls for that these days. It’s a stretch, but you could even argue that the diving tendency owes a lot to this ruffian school of refereeing. You fight fire with fire.)

    Finally, for the example you mention, bigger teams are always going to get those kinds of call, unfortunately. For obvious reasons: refs (like most other people) are assuming that Darmstadt defenders will likely resort to fouls to stop Schalke forwards. What this really shows (also unfortunately) is that even high-level refs very often don’t “see” what happens, but instead “assume”, based on other stuff.

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