Round 21, Feb 13-15
This started off horiibly for Dortmund against Mainz, as they fell behind in 50 seconds. The Neons reacted with furious attacks, but Mainz sub-GK Stefanos Kapino (filling in for banned Karius) was outstanding. But unlike other games, the Neons didn’t fall apart, they kept coming. n the 2nd half tey quickly grabbed a lead, but even when Mainz equalized, they simply turned on the jets again and finished off the game with a string end spurt. This certainly gives some indication that things might finally be moving in the right direction for BVB. Good news for Dortmund fans was that Marco Reus extended his contract, which although doesn’t guarantee he won’t move, it will certainly raise the price if he does.
Ouch. HSV has been kinda sucky, but shown signs of life. And Bayern München had been phoning it in a bit since the re-start. Pep Guardiola apparently had seen enough and unleashed the wolves and Bayern ripped Hamburg to shreds. Arjen Robben has been in superb form and continued his great run by blasting in another pair. It was total slaughter after the first host goal, Hamburg should be embarassed (although they’ve had a lot to be embarassed about the last couple of years)
A crazy match in Leverkusen against Wolfsburg. The two corporation sides delivered a slug fest and lots of goals. The VWs got off to a fast start and looked to have things wrapped up by half-time. But the Aspririns came back, driven by Korean Heung-min Son, who picked up a hatt-trick. The first goal he tapped through the GKs legs, who couldn’t find the ball. Rather than concentrating on good goal-keeping, Benaglio acted like a wanker in protesting a “foul”, and that seemed to hurt him on the next two Son strikes, when he looked crap. The Asprins amazingly fought back to a draw, but then in injury time Bas Dost stunned the crowd by grabbing the winner. With four goals, this was Dost’ best ever match for the Wolfies, and helps firmly establish them as the Bundesliga’s no.2.
Frankfurt got a win against Schalke that makes sense. Eintracht wanted the win, whereas the Blues were basically relying on their negative anti-football to grind out a result, and perhaps steal all the points. So justice was served as they lost. Frankfurt might be the most entertaining match in the Bundesliga schedule: 80 goals have been scored when they are on the field. (Bayern scores more, but they don’t let their opponent in on the fun. Bremen is next with 78
Gladbach won the Rhein-derby with Köln in injury time. Overall, it was deserved, as the guests basically just hunkered down for the whole match. If Frankfurt is the most exciting team to watch, then Köln is the most boring, as only 43 goals scored in their matches. Only HSV at 44 is equally boring, albeit they got a shot of “excitement” this round by having Bayern rip their ass.)
Bremen continues their great recovery, another win, this time over Augsburg, has them dreaming of Europe. Both teams relied a lot on standards and floating crosses with headers. Werder was a bit better and get the important win.
Hoffenheim and Stuttgart were basicaly in a snoozer. The Hoppers were a bit more adventurous and stole the win in injury-time. They probably deserve it on balance, since Stuttgart was basically crap.
Sunday had huge relegation matches. Berlin hosted Freiburg, but looked crap. The visitors relied on a stout defense and counters. It paid off big time, as Hertha were without ideas, so the Breisgauers grabbed all points.
Paderborn has been in trouble, and you’d figure that Hannover was looking at this home match as a way to improve things in their listless season. Instead the 96ers threw away the match as they simply didn’t do enough. They had a clear edge, but dicked around aimlessly, even after taking the lead. Paderborn realized that a huge result was possible, and went for the win, getting the reward. Whereas the 96ers position hasn’t changed too much, for SCP it’s a massive win, as it stops their free fall and pulls them out of the drop zone.
Total attendance 432,809 (avg 48,090), sellouts in München and Gladbach
Borussia Dortmund - 1. FSV Mainz 05 4:2 (0:1) 80,200
0:1 Soto (1.)
1:1 Subotic (50., Schmelzer)
2:1 Reus (55., Kampl)
2:2 Malli (57., Soto)
3:2 Aubameyang (71., Reus)
4:2 Sahin (78., Aubameyang)
Bayern München - Hamburger SV 8:0 (3:0) 75,000 *
1:0 T. Müller (21., penalty)
2:0 M. Götze (23., T. Müller)
3:0 Robben (36., T. Müller)
4:0 Robben (47., M. Götze)
5:0 T. Müller (55., Schweinsteiger)
6:0 Lewandowski (56., T. Müller)
7:0 Ribery (69., Lewandowski)
8:0 M. Götze (88., Pizarro)
Bayer 04 Leverkusen - VfL Wolfsburg 4:5 (0:3) 29,227
0:1 Dost (6., Vieirinha)
0:2 Naldo (17., direct freekick)
0:3 Dost (29., De Bruyne)
1:3 Son (57., Bellarabi)
2:3 Son (62., K. Papadopoulos)
2:4 Dost (63., Rodriguez)
3:4 Son (67., Castro)
4:4 Bellarabi (72.)
4:5 Dost (90. + 3, Vieirinha)
Bor. Mönchengladbach - 1. FC Köln 1:0 (0:0) 54,010 *
1:0 G. Xhaka (90. + 1, Hazard)
TSG Hoffenheim - VfB Stuttgart 2:1 (1:1) 29,309
1:0 Roberto Firmino (30., Abraham)
1:1 G. Sakai (39.
2:1 Rudy (90. + 3, Volland)
Werder Bremen - FC Augsburg 3:2 (3:1) 39,746
1:0 Lukimya (16., Junuzovic)
1:1 Klavan (21., Bobadilla)
2:1 di Santo (23., penalty, Selke)
3:1 Gebre Selassie (45., Junuzovic)
3:2 To. Werner (79., Callsen-Bracker)
Eintracht Frankfurt - FC Schalke 04 1:0 (0:0) 50,400
1:0 Piazon (65., Chandler)
Hertha BSC - SC Freiburg 0:2 (0:1) 36,617
0:1 Klaus (14., Guedé)
0:2 Philipp (52., Schmid)
Hannover 96 - SC Paderborn 07 1:2 (0:0) 38,300
1:0 Marcelo (66., Joselu)
1:1 Lakic (72., Hartherz)
1:2 Meha (79., direct freekick)
1 Bayern München (M, P) 21 16 4 1 53:9 +44 52
2 VfL Wolfsburg 21 13 5 3 46:23 +23 44
3 Bor. Mönchengladbach 21 10 6 5 28:17 +11 36
4 FC Schalke 04 21 10 4 7 31:23 +8 34
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5 FC Augsburg 21 11 1 9 30:27 +3 34
6 Bayer 04 Leverkusen 21 8 8 5 34:27 +7 32
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7 TSG Hoffenheim 21 8 5 8 33:34 -1 29
8 Werder Bremen 21 8 5 8 35:43 -8 29
9 Eintracht Frankfurt 21 7 7 7 39:41 -2 28
10 Hannover 96 21 7 4 10 24:32 -8 25
11 1. FC Köln (N) 21 6 6 9 19:24 -5 24
12 SC Paderborn 07 (N) 21 5 8 8 23:35 -12 23
13 Hamburger SV 21 6 5 10 14:30 -16 23
14 1. FSV Mainz 05 21 4 10 7 27:30 -3 22
15 Borussia Dortmund 21 6 4 11 25:29 -4 22
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16 SC Freiburg 21 4 9 8 23:30 -7 21
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17 Hertha BSC Berlin 21 6 3 12 26:40 -14 21
18 VfB Stuttgart 21 4 6 11 21:37 -16 18
1st line: Champions League
2nd line: Europaliga (+ Cup winner)
3rd line: Playoff with 2.Liga 3rd place
4th line: Relegation to 2.Liga
M = Meister, defending Champion
P = Pokalsieger, Cup winner
N = Neuling, just promoted