Dortmund defends the lead, huge away win for Freiburg. Bayern embarasses Hertha in Berlin.
1899 Hoffenheim - VfB Stuttgart 1:2 (0:2) 30,150
0:1 Ibisevic (8., Boulahrouz)
0:2 Ibisevic (43., Boulahrouz)
1:2 Salihovic (74., penalty, Johnson)
Borussia Dortmund - Werder Bremen 1:0 (1:0) 80,720
1:0 Kagawa (8., Gündogan)
FC Augsburg - 1. FSV Mainz 05 2:1 (1:1) 30,025
0:1 Allagui (36., Choupo-Moting)
1:1 Koo (43., Oehrl)
2:1 S. Langkamp (51., Bellinghausen)
Hamburger SV - SC Freiburg 1:3 (0:2) 52,440
0:1 Flum (20., Schmid)
0:2 D. Caligiuri (43., Mujdza)
0:3 Makiadi (72., Schuster)
1:3 Ilicevic (75.)
1. FC Nürnberg - VfL Wolfsburg 1:3 (1:2) 39,320
1:0 Didavi (9., Esswein)
1:1 Mandzukic (15., M. Schäfer)
1:2 Helmes (24., Mandzukic)
1:3 Helmes (53., Mandzukic)
Bayer Leverkusen - Borussia M'gladbach 1:2 (0:1) 30,210
0:1 Reus (7.)
1:1 Kießling (75.)
1:2 de Camargo (88., Reus)
Hertha BSC Berlin - Bayern München 0:6 (0:3) 75,244
0:1 T. Müller (9., Ribery)
0:2 Robben (12., T. Müller)
0:3 Robben (19., penalty, T. Müller)
0:4 Gomez (50., penalty, Ribery)
0:5 Kroos (51., Robben)
0:6 Robben (67., penalty, Ribery)
Sunday matches:
1. FC Kaiserslautern - FC Schalke 04 1:4 (1:2) 49,780
1:0 Rodnei (3., Tiffert)
1:1 Holtby (39., Huntelaar)
1:2 Huntelaar (45., Fuchs)
1:3 Raul (51., Draxler)
1:4 Farfan (81., Holtby)
Hannover 96 - 1. FC Köln 4:1 (1:1) 45,000
1:0 Stindl (19., Schlaudraff)
1:1 Pezzoni (43., Clemens)
2:1 Schlaudraff (61., penalty, Rausch)
3:1 M. Diouf (67., Ya Konan)
4:1 M. Diouf (83., Stindl)
1 Borussia Dortmund (M) 26 18 5 3 53:16 +37 59
2 Bayern München 26 17 3 6 64:17 +47 54
3 Borussia M'gladbach 26 15 6 5 39:16 +23 51
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4 FC Schalke 04 (P) 26 16 2 8 58:34 +24 50
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5 Bayer Leverkusen 26 11 7 8 39:34 +5 40
6 Werder Bremen 26 11 6 9 40:39 +1 39
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7 Hannover 96 26 9 11 6 34:36 -2 38
8 VfB Stuttgart 26 10 6 10 43:34 +9 36
9 VfL Wolfsburg 26 10 4 12 34:47 -13 34
10 1. FC Nürnberg 26 9 4 13 25:37 -12 31
11 1. FSV Mainz 05 26 7 9 10 38:41 -3 30
12 1899 Hoffenheim 26 7 9 10 29:37 -8 30
13 1. FC Köln 26 8 4 14 33:50 -17 28
14 Hamburger SV 26 6 9 11 30:48 -18 27
15 FC Augsburg (N) 26 5 11 10 27:40 -13 26
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16 SC Freiburg 26 6 7 13 33:53 -20 25
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17 Hertha BSC Berlin (N) 26 5 8 13 26:47 -21 23
18 1. FC Kaiserslautern 26 3 11 12 17:36 -19 20
Leaders Dortmund dominated against Bremen, missing GK Tim Wiese who broke his face or something in training. Shinji Kagawa scored quickly, and the rout looked on, with Kagawa and Kehl hitting the post and and crossbar. But then the Neons basically went to sleep, wasting chances and dicking around. Werder did absolutely zilch, so the victory was never in doubt, but Borussia could have easily won 5-0 and Bremen couldn’t have complained. The Neons really need to start slapping in the goals though.
Bayern had a cake walk as they blasted hapless Hertha 6-0 away. It was a laughable match, Bayern could have scored 10 if they pressed really hard. Basically the only defense Hertha had was fouling folks in the box. Their attack was basically non-existant, the only real “offense” consisting of that wanker Rukavytsa trying to win penalties by flopping like a fairy. Otto Rehagel must be thinking “F%^$ing A!!! I can out of retirement for this?!” In such a lame display, there’s no way Hertha stays up. Rehagel is going to really have kick some asses for Berlin to recover. On the plus side, there’s still time. For Bayern, things are clicking nicely and they padded their stats. Robben was on fire, but probably could have had a couple of more goals. Neverthless, they really don’t gain any ground on Dortmund.
Gladbach got back on track with their 200th away win in their Bundesliga history. Marco Reus was the key player with a goal and assist. Another slap-in-the-face for Luserkusen, still smarting after their glorious (not) showing in Barcelona. Well actually, that’s not fair. After Reus gave Gladbach the blitz lead, the Aspirins got increasing pressure as they chased the lead. However, perhaps all the effort drained them too much, as after Stefan Kiessling equalized, they began to relax. And of course Gladbach pounced and snatched the win at the end.
Kaiserslautern set a new team record, but not one they’ll be too proud of. 16 straight matches without a win. In front of a sold old home crowd, FCK managed a blitz-lead, Rodnei’s diving header their first goal in some 300 minutes. But Schalke wasn’t fazed, but it took a while to shake off Thursday’s Europa-liga effort. Once things settled down, they dominated the rest of the match. FCK relied on their pretty decent defense, but as Schalke’s pressure increased, it was only a matter of time.
Two much improved squads met in Augsburg. Mainz and FCA played kickabout in midfield for most of the first half, until goals woke them up. In the 2nd half, it was homeside Augsburg that seized the initiative and pressed for the win. Mainz was cuaght a it off guard and started to fight back only after they fell behind. Huge win for Augsburg. First game since his return that Mohamed Zidan didn’t score for FSV.
Freiburg is not dead – but Hamburg wish they were! HSV sucked and stunk up the joint and SCF took advantage to record a huge victory. Their defense was solid, and they used dangerous counters to run HSV ragged. The hosts were reduced to desperate long balls and crosses into the box, which the disciplined Breisgauer defense fended off. Needless to say, Hamburg’s feeble effort was serenaded with a deserved chorus of whistles and boos.
Wolfsburg had perhaps their best performance of the season, and it was due to improved play of two players that have seemingly been in Felix Magth’s doghouse, Mario Mandzukic and Patrick Helmes. Der Club, despite the early lead, was too lazy and somewhat chaotic in defense.
Hannover had no problem beating Köln like a dead horse. The 96ers dillied around aimlessly after the lead, and let Köln back in the match near the end of the 1st period. However in the 2nd half they were all business and proceeded to wrap things up with an ass-kicking. Köln were without Podolski (banned for his throat grabbing incident), so you figured they would go down in flames, perhaps a preview of what things will be like next season.
Vedad Ibisevic took revenge against his old club as he shot Stuttgart to the win against Hoffenheim. After getting blasted at Bayern disgracefully last week, the Hoppers had something to prove to the sold out Rhein-Neckar-Arena. Well, not in the 1st half, as Stuttgart ran rings around them and Ibisevic laid down the double bitch-slap. At least in the 2nd half the Hoppers came storming out and fighting, pulled a goal back and had some chances. But in the end they failed, as they have in all previous 7 tries to get a win against VfB.
The Dortmund that is wasteful of chances in the Bundesliga is the same Dortmund that crashed out of the Champions League, even though they play better football than Marseille, Olympiakos and probably even Arsenal. In high-stakes European competitions you cannot take ten or even five chances to score a goal and you can’t expect your opposition to be as clueless as Bremen (whose sixth place, given today’s performance, is pretty shocking in itself). Last Bundesliga season was not any different that way, except that they seemed to create even more chances, so there was a larger pool from which to waste…
I’m saying this as someone who wants them to do well in Europe and maybe it’ll get better with more experience. But it’s frustrating to see a team playing such beautiful stuff lose to some cynical geezers.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Dortmund wastes way too many chances, and are actually quite similar to Arsenal of recent years. (Difference being that Dortmund’s defense is probably better). Even Lewandowski this season (and Barrios last year), who is putting up good numbers, seems to miss chances that Mario Gomez who bang into the net, no problem. In the Bundesliga, they can still be dominate, but as you correctly point out, in Europe you can’t afford that.
As for Bremen, this season has been one of feasting on inferior teams and almost phoning it against better teams. Given the balance in the league, this is enough to get them enough wins to stay in the upper half.