Those seeking definitive confirmation of some aspects 2019/20 German Bundesliga will have to wait just a little longer. The 31st round of the league concluded on Sunday still without an official champion, an arithmetically confirmed UEFA tournament berth, or a mathematically relegated side. Another round kicks off in less than 48 hours. Much should be settled by midweek.
Seven-time defending champions Bayern München defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach 2-1 on Saturday. The title race, pronounced dead by many of us two weeks ago, nevertheless isn’t officially over. Borussia Dortmund earned a late 1-0 victory over Fortuna Düsseldorf to remain seven points behind. At the bottom of the table, SV Werder Bremen supplied the biggest shock of the weekend with a 5-1 blowout of SC Paderborn 07. Paderborn now cannot hope to rise above the relegation playoff place, but are not yet formally relegated.
As we prepare to bring this season to a close, and indeed turn some of our attention to all the other sports leagues now opening up around Europe and the world, it’s worth noting that the DFL took proactive steps toward planning the 2020/21 campaign. It was revealed this week that the DFL will be shooting for a September 11 kickoff. With prudent enough long-range planning, it’s reasonable to assume that some fans can be possibly be allowed in by then.
Observational Aphorisms- Week 31
Substantial news broke out of the Bayern camp this week. Team doctor Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohfahrt announced he was calling it a career. Non-Germans may not know who in the hell I refer to and it isn’t exactly easy to find an equivalent. No other country has a national sports medicine godfather. Imagine, if you will, that any and every injury affecting one of your national team players lay in the hands of one sports physician… for over half a century. That’s Dr. Müller-Wohlfahrt. He’s been pulling double duty for Bayern and the national team since the 1970s.
Germans regularly manufacture good jokes about the long-haired guru who reliably trots onto the pitch every time a member of the Nationalelf so much as grazes a shin. Most of them combine the latest quality Chuck Norris quips with the fact that… well… someone toting a couple of igloo coolers containing magical freeze spray isn’t exactly what one might call a real doctor. The notorious man opted to retire in the middle of a pandemic. Hence, it seems apt to file some final reports on the badass double-hyphenated teutonic name. Know that coronavirus is taking extra precautions against Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt. COVID-19 washes its hands after coming into contact with his topical aerosol coolant.
June 12, 2020. Could there have been any greater disparity between what was supposed to transpire on this date and what actually did? The historic UEFA European Championship was scheduled to kick off in Rome on a beautiful summer’s eve. Many of us had our calendars marked since late November. Italy vs. Turkey. What a match. No international thriller for us this year. Instead, we got a Friday night showdown between TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and RasenBallSport Leipzig. The two Bundesliga clubs with the least amount of history squared off in front of empty seats. Yawn. As if it even matters, Leipzig grabbed a 2-0 victory in the match known as “El Plastico.”
Of course, we will have some international football to watch this summer. It will simply be played on the club level. After the Champion’s League and Europa League allow clubs to complete the second legs of their respective round of 16 and round of 32 fixtures at the regular venues, we’re headed to neutral sites in August to complete the competitions in quick-tourney styles. Football fans are justifiably excited about this. It should prove a lot of fun to watch a kind of mini club world cup. It’s expected that Lisbon will be confirmed as the Champions League completion site on Wednesday. The Europa league is likely headed to Germany, with Frankfurt or Düsseldorf potentially serving as sites.
Perhaps there does exist some hope that a limited number of fans might be allowed into stadiums soon. Consider the speed at which the DFL is relaxing some its of restrictions. Those tuning into the matches this weekend will have noticed that bench players are no longer required to sit six feet apart. Furthermore, the mask requirement has been dropped. This hardly constitutes real progress as we’re only dropping what amounted to an absurd charade for the cameras. It never made any sense, to begin with. Before talking fans, we might as well work on nixing the nonsensical five substitution allowance. Spectators should have the privilege of watching real football. My views on this remain steadfast as ever. Don’t mess with this aspect of the game.
All of the interesting football comes before these superfluous exchanges turn what once was a football match into a laid back exhibition in the park. We can prove that by reviewing some more of this weekend’s action. Cases in point, Lucien Favre needed only two substitutions for the BVB to eke out a 1-0 victory over Fortuna Düsseldorf. Florian Kohfeldt built a 3-0 lead over SC Paderborn 07 with his original XI. Freiburg and Wolfsburg scored four goals without removing a single player from the pitch. Hansi Flick… doesn’t really fit into this thesis. I just had to find a way gripe about him beating Marco Rose’s best version Gladbach squad with Michael Cuisance starting his first match of the season and Lucas Hernandez at left-back.
Urs Fischer and 1. FC Union Berlin will remain in the Bundesliga. That’s my confident prediction after watching the impressive 2-1 win over 1. FC Köln this weekend. The Eisernern earn their first win in six tries since the restart by finally making a concrete effort to win a match. All it took was an attack-minded 4-2-4 anchored by a healthy Yunus Malli. How refreshing it was to see them at long last ditch that horrid 5-2-3. Two Berlin clubs in the top flight next year counts as uplifting news.
On the topic of uplifting news, how about a really cool story involving the Union ultras? A small group of diehards watched the 1-1 draw with FC Schalke 04 last weekend in the Biergarten adjacent to the stadium. Their chants and cries, loud enough to reach the pitch whilst the match was being played, compelled the players to pay them a visit after the fixture had been concluded. The players swung by afterward, greeting their supporters from behind a fence whilst standing on separate tables six feet apart. Cops on the scene reported that social distancing norms were fully observed by both parties. Cool stuff over at den Alten Försterei.
It’s not all sunshine and roses on the fan front, however. The DFB-Pokal hangover from the midweek fixtures has some of us questioning football’s return. While German football lovers have, with some practice, largely been able to tolerate the spectator-less fixtures, the first DFB-Pokal week left most experiencing different emotions. The return of cup football brought back all the pain. It wasn’t at all a pleasant viewing experience. Though we had to finish the season, one wonders if it was wise to proceed with the domestic cup so soon. We could have easily postponed it until such time as at least some fans could actively partake.
We now have a Leverkusen vs. Bayern Final scheduled for July 4. Disappointing. As probable as such an outcome would have been anyways, we’ll never know if the fans could have swung it in a different direction. Moreover, the Leverkusen-Saarbrücken semifinal wasn’t anywhere near fair. The fourth-tier side, playing in a league that had been outright suspended, didn’t even have the opportunity to play a competitive match in the months leading up to the tie. It showed.
Oh well. Such is life. We’ll draw on some historical factoids to spin some gold out of this straw. Believe it or not, these two teams have never met before in a Pokal final. Among the higher caliber German organizations, Leverkusen has been among the worst performers in this competition. Clubs like Fortuna Düsseldorf, Karlsruher SC, FC Nürnberg, and Dresdener FC have all won more cups than Leverkusen. Die Werkself lost their last two finals in 2002 and 2008.
The one solitary domestic cup that they did win, in 1993, almost doesn’t count. That was the infamous year that the Hertha BSC reserve squad made it all the way to the final. At that time, reserve squads weren’t the stash of carefully-groomed paid young prospects that we know today. These were real amateurs; ones that Leverkusen barely managed to sneak past 1-0. Can Peter Bosz slay the giants and bring long-deferred glory to Germany’s red company team? Doubtful, but we have a storyline. We’ll watch.
Weekly Tactical Focus- “Sonic Boom”
They’re back! The great Rhein/Main experiment lives! Just when you thought that you were out, they pulled you back in. Adi Hütter’s Eintracht Frankfurt gelled like world-class superstars and exploded for four goals in another astonishing burst of power. This keeps happening. How does this keep happening!? A team that has played over 100 fixtures in less than two seasons keeps inexplicably re-inflating multiple flat tires just when it appears they’re sure to veer off the road.
The SGE’s 2019/20 story presages of wild pendulum swings from the very beginning. This isn’t necessarily a new development. Frankfurt fans have referred to their club as “Die Launische Diva” (the “moody diva”) for some years now. With all due respect to the instability the organization experienced in the late 90s and aughts, I think this season qualifies as the most literal manifestation of that moniker. The craziness never ends.
What a fine football match on Saturday. The German Eagles really took flight in their 4-1 thumping of Bruno Labbadia’s Hertha BSC. They may not clear fighter jets for takeoff at the Rhein-Main Airfield anymore, but it sure as hell felt like it this weekend.
Lineup—Eintracht Frankfurt—(4-4-2)
Hütter gave Martin Hinteregger a well-deserved rest and gave Lucas Torro his first start since the 15th round. The 25-year-old Spanish international worked as a flexible sweeper patrolling the fourth axis for loose balls. Makoto Hasebe clearly had full license to venture as far forward as he pleased. The ever-brilliant vertical pairing of Hasebe with countryman Daichi Kamada yielded excellent results.
On some attacks, we saw glimmers of the lethal centralized 3-3-4 that dismantled Arsenal late last year. At other times, Kamada shifted right as to await service as a more traditional short-striker. Whenever this happened, Danny da Costa would sprint over to the left. Djibril Sow and Filip Kostic also kept in interesting by swapping flanks frequently. There were some gorgeous lateral shifts, not to mention some sparkling long switches from all the midfielders.
Frankfurt dominated matters early on, forcing Labbadia into some rather desperate tactical shifts. The new manager’s preferred 4-2-3-1 had already been forcibly disrupted by injuries to Maximillian Mittelstädt and Javairo Dilrosun. The solution appeared to be a 4-4-2 rotating diamond with Per Ciljan Skjelbred positioned just ahead of the back four. Arne Maier, Marko Grujic, and Vladimir Darida were ostensibly supposed to cycle on the second and third axis.
This didn’t last long. Once Labbadia noticed how well Hasebe and Kamada were moving, he recalled Darida all the way back to what looked like a pseudo fullback position. Maier and Grujic dropped back too as the alte Dame abounded most any attempt to contest the midfield. This shuffle may have had something to do with two killer efforts from da Costa early on. He unleashed lasers from both the left and right. Labbadia had to secure his flanks early as the SGE wingers were torching him from whichever direction they wished.
Krzysztof Piatek’s 24th-minute goal came very much against the run of play. Hütter’s XI were in complete control of the match. One might as well say they were in complete control of the space around Piatek as well. “Il-Pistolero” self-synthesized a magnificent tally out of absolutely nothing. One could fault Hasebe for turning the ball over, but I sincerely doubt Lionel Messi would have squeezed a goal out of that situation.
Ceaseless offensive pressure gave one the feeling that an equalizer would be quickly forthcoming. Somehow the ball managed to stay out of Hertha keeper Rune Jarstein’s net. The SGE poured numbers forward into the box. Somehow the finishing touch eluded despite more clinquant crosses from da Costa and Sow. Dominik Kohr pulled off a perfect cutback in the 38th that missed the right boot by millimeters.
As has been the case so many times this season, it looked like Frankfurt’s fate was all tied up in Filip Kostic’s ball control. The talismanic Serb’s touch was off, even if he did manage some stinging distance efforts. Kamada had him flawlessly set up in the 42nd. How he bungled the return ball so badly is beyond me.
Kamada found a different target two minutes later. The razor-sharp flick-on to hit Bas Dost in full stride fully deserved a goal. I remain uncertain as to whether Dedryck Boyata actually clipped Dost and definitely don’t think such minimal contact from Hertha defender warranted a straight red. In any event, Kamada’s masterly move certainly merited something decisive insofar as the match was concerned. Poetic justice was at work.
Despite a 1-0 halftime lead, Hertha was on the ropes. Reduced to 10 men having even their backup tactical plan torpedoed by an injury to Skjelbred, they were begging to be finished off. Hütter made one change and turned everyone loose in the full “let them play” style.
Lineup—Eintracht Frankfurt—46th Minute (3-5-2)
Now we’re working something a little more familiar. Kamada assumed the role of a more traditional no. 10 whilst Hasebe ran pivot and the subbed-on André Silva joined Dost upfront in a clear two-striker set. Evan N’dicka and David Abraham effectively said “fuck it” and pushed all the way forward into the box.
The Adler played with all the reckless abandon they displayed when crushing Bayern München 5-1 earlier in the season. It was heavenly. All four goals that followed were undeniably worthy of the overall season’s top ten list. For me to even attempt to describe them would be folly. Just enjoy. If you’ve time to watch nothing else, check out Kamada’s assist in the 62nd:
Damn. That’s all there is to say. Damn. Makoto Hasebe may have made history this week by becoming the longest-serving Asian player in the history of the Bundesliga, but this day belonged to his fellow Japanese international. From a broader perspective, it was a great match for both of them and indeed the entire squad. There wasn’t a C-level player on the pitch.
Well done, Adler. One can now look forward to more mercurial form swings. Watch them totally blow it against hapless Schalke on Wednesday.