Dortmund marches towards the title, Kaiserslautern does a Google-Maps search to find Sandhausen…
VfB Stuttgart - Werder Bremen 4:1 (2:1) 59,000
0:1 Rosenberg (25., Marin)
1:1 Gentner (37., Molinaro)
2:1 Harnik (45. + 1, Niedermeier)
3:1 Harnik (53., Ibisevic)
4:1 Cacau (89., Sakai)
FC Schalke 04 - Borussia Dortmund 1:2 (1:1) 61,673
1:0 Farfan (9.)
1:1 Piszczek (17.)
1:2 Kehl (63.)
Hamburger SV - Hannover 96 1:0 (1:0) 57,000
1:0 Son (12.)
1. FC Kaiserslautern - 1. FC Nürnberg 0:2 (0:1) 42,000
0:1 Didavi (42., Frantz)
0:2 Pekhart (73., Didavi)
VfL Wolfsburg - FC Augsburg 1:2 (1:1) 25,143
0:1 Oehrl (13.)
1:1 Helmes (27., Mandzukic)
1:2 S. Langkamp (88., Bellinghausen)
Bayer Leverkusen - Hertha BSC Berlin 3:3 (1:0) 27,000
1:0 Schürrle (44., Barnetta)
2:0 Kießling (51., Rolfes)
2:1 Lasogga (62., Lell)
2:2 Torun (71., Rukavytsya)
2:3 Torun (77., Raffael)
3:3 Kießling (84., Castro)
Bayern München - 1. FSV Mainz 05 0:0 (0:0) 69,000
Sunday:
Borussia M'gladbach - 1. FC Köln 3:0 (1:0) 52,990
1:0 Arango (19.)
2:0 Jantschke (53., Reus)
3:0 Reus (55., Arango)
SC Freiburg - 1899 Hoffenheim 0:0 (0:0) 23,500
1 Borussia Dortmund (M) 31 22 6 3 69:23 +46 72
2 Bayern München 31 20 4 7 69:20 +49 64
3 FC Schalke 04 (P) 31 18 3 10 66:41 +25 57
4 Borussia M'gladbach 31 16 8 7 46:22 +24 56
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 VfB Stuttgart 31 14 7 10 59:41 +18 49
6 Bayer Leverkusen 31 12 9 10 46:43 +3 45
7 Hannover 96 31 11 11 9 39:43 -4 44
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 Werder Bremen 31 11 9 11 45:50 -5 42
9 1899 Hoffenheim 31 10 11 10 38:40 -2 41
10 VfL Wolfsburg 31 12 4 15 42:56 -14 40
11 1. FC Nürnberg 31 11 5 15 33:42 -9 38
12 1. FSV Mainz 05 31 9 10 12 47:48 -1 37
13 SC Freiburg 31 9 9 13 41:56 -15 36
14 Hamburger SV 31 8 10 13 34:55 -21 34
15 FC Augsburg (N) 31 7 12 12 34:48 -14 33
----------------------------------------------------------------------
16 1. FC Köln 31 8 5 18 36:66 -30 29
----------------------------------------------------------------------
17 Hertha BSC Berlin (N) 31 6 10 15 34:57 -23 28
18 1. FC Kaiserslautern 31 3 11 17 19:46 -27 20
Stuttgart opened the round on Friday night with an ass-kicking against Bremen. Despite falling behind, VfB wasn’t ruffled, and pressed hard against weakened Werder. They broke through just before the halftime whistle, and in the second half overran Bremen to largely ensure their Europa-liga qualification.
The 140th “Revier-derby” between Schalke and Dortmund was a typical hard fought match, with neither team giving quarter. Jefferson Farfan opened the scoring with a beautiful blast from the rightside across the goal. A few minutes later, Lukas Piszcek did almost the identical from the leftside. The match continued back and forth, with the crowd at a fever pitch. Sebastian Kehl poked in the game winner a little after an hour. On balance, perhaps Dortmund had a slight edge, but it was miniscule. However, the difference seems to be that they know how to win when the game is on the line, and Schalke flounders.
Bayern München clearly felt the pain from the midweek loss at Dortmund. They were somewhat lackadasical, dominating the match, but with little urgency. Mainz was content to let the hosts dick around aimlessly and pretend they were trying to win. In the end, points get split and the title is pretty much Dortmund’s now. Good result for Mainz.
Augsburg might have got the key points that will keep them up. Wolfsburg dominated the whole match, furiously attacking the Fuggers. But GK Simon Jentzsch was superb. Veteran Jentzsch had played some 7 years for Wolfsburg, and in his return to the VW-Arena was almost unbeatable. While Augsburg was defending desperately, it’s not surprisingly that the VWs made a couple of defensive mistakes, which led to both FCA goals and a famous away victory, giving them critical points and putting immense pressure on the fellow strugglers in the “zone”.
Losing, playing crap, now a red card and a penalty: Hertha looked dead and buried. But GK Thomas Kraft stopped Simon Rolfes penalty and the Berliners amazingly stormed back to take the lead. Luserkusen eventually squared the match, but was unable to get the win. Another crap performance for the Aspirins – how could they let this one get away? -, but a good result for Hertha. They’ve still got a chance to save themselves, and it’s clear they haven’t given up yet.
Hamburg won an important northern derby against Hannover. HSV has been struggling and needed the points. South Korean forward Heung-min Son has been ho-hum most of the season, but was red hot especially early. his dribbling and running caused chaos in the 96er defense, and his early goal ultimately gave HSV a critical win.
Kaiserslautern loses at home to Nürnberg, who pretty much have assured their stay for another year. It was a deserved victory for der Club, as aside from a period after the restart, FCN had the match under control. FCK only had that period in the 2nd half when they looked like they might get something, but once again, it was only an ilusion. They suck, and they’re going down. Hello Sandhausen!
Gladbach and Köln met in a Rhein derby that was pretty one-sided. Köln was pretty crap, so it wasn’t much of a contest. Juan Arango curled a nice free kick to open the scoring and Gladbach never looked back. Marco Reus dribbled right up the middle through the lame Goats defense to put the finish on.
Freiburg and Hoffenheim played to a scoreless draw, but there was a surprising amount of action and chances. Both clubs could have won, the Hoppers spent a lot of time whining about a penalty they thought they deserved. Freiburg really has no relegation worries, and Hoffenheim still has a miniscule chance to sneak into Europe.
When people were saying that Bayern would concentrate on the Champions League, I thought that was a load of crap. For one thing, Dortmund had/has tricky games ahead and could have easily lost today. But Bayern really did rest at least three starters (Lahm, Kroos, and Gomez) and, more importantly, didn’t really seem to care much today. I wonder if they had a Plan A and Plan B, depending on Dortmund’s result. But anyway, it was surprising to see them conceding. They’ll probably regret it by the time they’ve been dumped out of the CL.
I wouldn’t be too hard on Bayern. The Bundesliga train had pretty much left the station when they lost in Dortmund. Although BVB had a couple of difficult matches (Schalke and Gladbach), they would have had to lose both, and I think that was unlikely. Especially since Schalke usually chokes in big matches, the Bayern brass probably figured it was over. Leaving out some starters shouldn’t really matter against Mainz at home, but clearly they weren’t motivated.