The Prussians (Borussia) benefit through tough away wins, but the Bavarians (Bayern) stub their toe…
Bundesliga - Round 22
1899 Hoffenheim - 1. FSV Mainz 05 1:1 (1:1)
24,300 1:0 Noveski (9., own goal, Vukcevic)
1:1 Zidan (29., Zabavnik)
Hertha BSC Berlin - Borussia Dortmund 0:1 (0:0)
74,244 0:1 Großkreutz (66., Lewandowski)
Hamburger SV - Werder Bremen 1:3 (0:2)
56,553 0:1 Marin (9., Rosenberg)
0:2 Trybull (45., Junuzovic)
1:2 Petric (76., direct freekick)
1:3 Arnautovic (86., Wiese
1. FC Nürnberg - 1. FC Köln 2:1 (1:0)
38,101 1:0 Esswein (28.)
1:1 Novakovic (66., Roshi)
2:1 Pekhart (85., Esswein)
1. FC Kaiserslautern - Borussia M'gladbach 1:2 (0:2)
45,661 0:1 Herrmann (9., de Camargo)
0:2 Arango (14., Reus)
1:2 Jessen (63., Wagner)
Bayer Leverkusen - FC Augsburg 4:1 (1:0)
23,368 1:0 Kießling (25., Castro)
1:1 Koo (50., Mölders)
2:1 Castro (60., L. Bender)
3:1 Kießling (64., Schürrle)
4:1 Schürrle (70., Kießling)
SC Freiburg - Bayern München 0:0 (0:0)
24,000
Sunday:
FC Schalke 04 - VfL Wolfsburg 4:0 (2:0)
60,511
1:0 Raul (10., Matip)
2:0 Huntelaar (15., Fuchs)
3:0 Matip (49., Papadopoulos)
4:0 Huntelaar (72., Fuchs)
Hannover 96 - VfB Stuttgart 4:2 (2:0)
37,800
1:0 Haggui (25., Pander)
2:0 M. Diouf (32., Pander)
3:0 Pander (46.)
4:0 Stindl (73., Schmiedebach)
4:1 Harnik (75., Ibisevic)
4:2 Okazaki (79., Cacau)
1 Borussia Dortmund (M) 22 15 4 3 47:14 +33 49
2 Borussia M'gladbach 22 14 4 4 36:13 +23 46
3 Bayern München 22 14 3 5 49:14 +35 45
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4 FC Schalke 04 (P) 22 14 2 6 50:28 +21 44
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5 Werder Bremen 22 10 6 6 37:36 +1 36
6 Bayer Leverkusen 22 9 7 6 32:29 +3 34
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7 Hannover 96 22 8 10 4 27:27 0 34
8 VfL Wolfsburg 22 8 3 11 27:42 -15 27
9 VfB Stuttgart 22 7 5 10 33:32 +1 26
10 1899 Hoffenheim 22 6 8 8 24:26 -2 26
11 Hamburger SV 22 6 8 8 27:37 -10 26
12 1. FC Nürnberg 22 7 4 11 21:32 -11 25
13 1. FSV Mainz 05 22 5 9 8 30:36 -6 24
14 1. FC Köln 22 7 3 12 30:43 -13 24
15 Hertha BSC Berlin (N) 22 4 8 10 25:37 -12 20
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16 1. FC Kaiserslautern 22 3 9 10 16:28 -12 18
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17 FC Augsburg (N) 22 3 9 10 20:37 -17 18
18 SC Freiburg 22 4 6 12 27:47 -20 18
Dortmund had a tough time against a determined Hertha squad, but the champions prevailed. This was the 1,000th Bundesliga match for Hertha, and a sold out stadium saw a good fighting effort, but in the end the talent differential showed. Dortmund wasn’t overly impressive, but did enough to bring home the bacon. Shinji Kagawa was out injured, so Lucas Barrios got a start. He certainly showed some rust, as his blew a golden opportunity alone wide open in front of goal. Hertha didn’t have too many chances, although early in the 2nd half they had their best period, with Patrick Ebert coming close a couple of times. The winner came after Hertha GK Kraft made a brilliant save off a header to push of the bar, but Kevin Grosskreutz knocked home the rebound with a bicycle kick.
Bayern München certainly expected to do well against last-place Freiburg. The best offense against the worst defense, along with the fact that SCF hadn’t beaten Bayern in 18 straight Bundesliga matches. However the match was anything but easy. The Freiburgers played hard, fighting for every ball, and Bayern dicked around liked they just expected their opponents to gift them a goal. The Breisgauer gave one of their better performances, and through Caligiuri had a great chance to win at the end; Neuer came up with a fine save to hold the point. Bayern had several chances, but for the most part, a tight Freiburg defense kept them at bay, and when not, they had a sharp GK Baumann (nice save off a Thomas Müller blast just before halftime). So Bayern loses ground to their rivals at the top.
Gladbach jumped over Bayern with a tough win in Kaiserslautern. The Gladbacher’s jumped out fast with two breakaway goals, catching the Reds with their pants down. FCK made a strong effort in the 2nd half, with a tremendous rocket from Danish defender Jessen, but it wasn’t enough. This year’s Gladbach is too clever to blow leads like this, and Kaiserslautern has nothing to show for a decent effort. For Gladbach, there was also some bad news: midfielder Patrick hermann left with shoulder injury after 37 minutes, and it looks like he’ll be out “for a lengthy period”
Hoffenheim and Mainz fought a regional derby, but the Hoppers still aren’t impressing with joyous attacking football. Instead the guests from Mainz seemed to be pushing the envelope a bit harder. Hoffenheim took the lead through a somewhat fortunate own goal, but Mohamed Zidan scored his 3rd in 3 for Mainz – a nice addition in the winter transfer window. Overall, this was a fair result.
An exciting Nordderby, and host Hamburg seemed to have more of the play. But Bremen was cold-blooded in taking their chances, and HSV often flailed in promising situations. Werder took the lead after some fancy footwork by Marko Marin, and seemed in control with Trybull’s header just before half. HSV ran around aimlessly, and did pull one back on a ridiculously redirected free kick by Petric. He put his kick straight into the wall, but it bounced off a Bremen defender’s head to completely change direction. At the end, Bremen GK Tim Wiese punted all the way down field, and Arnautovic ran away from the sleeping defenders to slot home the final. Good win for Bremen.
On paper, Leverkusen got their act together and kicked Augsburg’s ass. But in fact the match was pretty even until the guests just collapsed midway through the 2nd half. Stefan Kiessling had a good game for the Aspirins, at least saving coach Robin Dutt from criticism this week.
Nürnberg and Köln met in a huge relegation 6 pointer. Overall, this was a deserved FCN win, as they showed more engagement. They took the lead on an impressive blast from Alex Esswein, but Novakovic equalized by squeezing the ball over the line in a scramble. It looked like the visitors might escape with a point, but Esswein put in a cross that was turned in via a slow header by Tomas Pekhart into the corner, Köln’s keeper grasping air in slow motion.
On Sunday, Schalke totally bitch-slapped Wolfsburg. Felix Magath’s return to Gelsenkirchen was not a happy one, well at least no if you’re Magath. I’m sure the 60,000+ fans were quite pleased. Basically Schalke overran the disastrous Wolfsburg defense, and things would have been worse if GK Benaglio hadn’t made some nice saves, including off Huntelaar’s penalty. Schalke is now the top scoring squad in the Bundesliga…
Hannover was all over Stuttgart like a wet rag, and dispatched VfB without too much effort. Well, the 96ers dominated from the start, and getting into the end-phase, they had an unasssaible 4-0 lead. However Stuttgart countered with two quick goals and managed to bring the home side back to earth. VfB pressed hard and had a few chances to cut the lead even more. In the end, the 96ers managed to withstand Stuttgart’s last gasp effort and deservedly get the points.