It is finished. With another full 18 professional fixtures completed via simultaneous kickoffs on Saturday and Sunday, Germany successfully concluded the 2019/20 campaign of both its first and second-tier Bundesligas. The zaniest season ever finally draws to a close. The global pandemic that suspended the season back in March brought its fair share of disruption but ultimately couldn’t preclude all 34 rounds from being played. We have, much like Fitzcarraldo, pulled the damned steamship over the mountain. Time to unwind with a little Caruso.
This will be forever remembered as the COVID-19 campaign. Before the annals of history subjugate literally everything else, I’d like to point out that this was also the season in which Borussia Mönchenghladbach put together one of the best starts ever. It was also the year that clubs across Germany commemorated the 30th anniversary of reunification. This was the year in which German clubs put together a historic unbeaten round in the European club fixtures, then put together another a couple of weeks later. This was the year that a fourth-tier side made it all the way to the DFB-Pokal semifinals.
This was the year that German ultras coordinated league-wide protest actions when their federation unfairly grouped them in with the FIFA anti-discrimination protocols. In a related note, this was also the year that German Bundesliga players blazed a trail for professional athletes everywhere with their brave anti-racist missives. This was, in short, one extremely eventful year. The German Bundesliga was already reaching a far larger global audience before the coronavirus hit. Now the first league to successfully restart and finish its 2019/20, everyone knows where to find the most reliable and colorful football on the planet.
There were last-minute shockers as action concluded. Werder Bremen, by virtue of a 6-1 win over 1. FC Köln, improbably Fortuna Düsseldorf in the top-tier relegation race. Bremen now faces FC Heidenheim in a playoff. Düsselfdorf, 0-3 losers to FC Union Berlin, are now automatically relegated. In the second division, the Karlsruher SC pulled off their own improbable escape with a 2-1 win over SpVgg Greuther Fürth. FC Nürnberg now awaits a third-division opponent in their own relegation playoff. SV Sandhausen unexpectedly walloped Hamburger SV 5-1, dooming the German “dino” to another season in the second division.
Observational Aphorisms- Week 34
And the much-heralded final UEFA Champions League place goes to… the Foals of Borussia Mönchengladbach. Hells to the yes. Congratulations to Marco Rose & Co on the successful conclusion of a quality campaign. In a vintage 4-2-3-1 vs. 4-2-3-1 duel with a distinctly old-fashioned feel, Rose out-maneuvered counterpart Bruno Labbadia to best upstarts Hertha Berlin 2-1. It was never an especially close match. Hertha’s Vedad Ibisevic snatched a very late consolation prize.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen manager Peter Bosz, the other coach competing for the top-four finish, didn’t show much appetite for a push to overcome Gladbach’s goal-differential. Both Kai Havetz and Moussa Diaby began the game on the bench. Die Werkself only eked past Mainz 1-0. Perhaps the Dutch manager had his eyes focused on the DFB-Pokal final next weekend. On the topic of teams with little incentive to play, many of Borussia Dortmund’s best players essentially rolled over for TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in a 0-4 loss.
The Dortmund result has several VfL Wolfsburg players and administrators fuming. Hoffenheim’s win, combined with the VfL’s 0-4 loss to Bayern, means that the Sinsheimers qualify automatically for next year’s Europa League group phase. The Wolves still have to play in the brutal second and third qualifying rounds, and then win the two-legged playoff. The usual fan theories begin to surface. Was it merely coincidence that the league’s second-best club barely attempted to compete? Was there a Dietmar Hopp payoff? Were the BVB players hungover?
I think it was just a case of Mats Hummels getting owned early and parts of the Dortmund XI packing it in after they fell behind 0-2 early. Moreover, it’s not entirely clear that the Wolves will have to travel that path. We’re not even finished with the 2019/20 Europa League yet! Wolfsburg can, in principle, still even win that competition. Even if they can’t, it’s not at all certain that we’ll have a full Europa League qualifying tournament in a couple of months. I’m shocked UEFA even attempted to schedule single-legged ties. These travel-contingent fixtures will be the first to be scratched should there be any major viral recurrence. Clubs from some nations may even forfeit. It’s too early to start complaining.
Thomas Müller’s 80th-minute strike pushed the German giants to a cumulative total of 100 goals for the season. Yes, that’s quite the milestone. No Bundesliga club has attained such a prolific number since Bayern shot home 101 during the 1971/72 campaign. Several dominant Bayern sides came close to breaking the plane in the mid and late ’70s. The 1981/82 title-winning Hamburger SV racked up 95 tallies while the 2012/13 Bayern side that kicked off this eight consecutive season title streak came closest with 98 goals. It’s a cool record, even if many of us hope not to see it repeated anytime soon.
Bayern striker Robert Lewandowski hunts a few records of his own. A 34-goal campaign, as it happens a personal best, earned the 31-year-old Polish striker his third consecutive Torjägerkanone (league-scoring trophy). Gerd Müller is the only other Bundesliga players to win the title in three successive seasons. This is the fifth time that Lewandowski has had the privilege of hoisting the canon. He’ll still have to win three more to beat Müller’s overall record of eight. He’ll also need to string together a season with seven more tallies to beat Müller’s record of 40 goals from the above-mentioned 1971/72 Bayern campaign. He’ll need 33 goals next season to overtake Klaus Fischer and stand second behind Müller on the Bundesliga’s all-time scoring list.
SC Freiburg’s 4-0 dismantling of Schalke 04 gives us a chance to discuss prize money. What end-of-season piece would be complete without some talk of it? The Breisgauer secure eighth place with the win. While it’s not quite good enough for Europe, the finish does carry with it an estimated €4 million more in TV revenue distribution than Schalke gets for their slide to 12th. Sympathizers of the Schwarzwaldverien will take it. That’s enough money for Christian Streich to hold on to at least one of the players looking to dash for the door.
Hard to have any sympathy for Schalke after the nonsense they’ve been pulling. One might as well retain sympathy for the local club members who have to shallow all this drivel. Corona robs the worst-affected German football fans of their best traditional solace: the right to protest en masse. The poor Schalke ultras don’t even have that consolation anymore. Tough times.
Weekly Tactical Focus- The Wondrous Werder
Long live the unexpected! Holy shit, they did it. Against all the odds and contra to every last reasonable expectation, it happened. Florian Kohfeldt’s Werderaner exploded for six gorgeous goals and, aided by a full-on Düsseldorfer collapse, pulled themselves up into the relegation playoff space on the season’s final day. Few had this outcome tipped. The mere act of contemplating it felt like a contrived writer’s fantasy.
Whenever we reach the final stages of a season, football fiends typically ask themselves which club did more to deserve relegation. Werder appeared to have this dubious distinction locked down. Their 19 losses and 69 goals allowed saw them tied for league worst in both categories. Uwe Rösler’s F95 wasn’t exactly a hot item either, but they at least managed to draw matches whereas Werder specialized in falling apart.
The SV showcased intolerable weakness in so many areas. They were atrocious in the air, godawful on set-pieces, and about as tactically incoherent club as it gets. There was also the matter of their terrible record at home. That last fact obviously doesn’t matter as much in a time of spectator-free ghost games. It remains semi-relevant, however. You wouldn’t believe how much it rains in northern Germany at this time of year; a time when we’re ordinarily not playing club football.
Observing the rain-soaked pitch, one couldn’t help but think that everything was about to fall into a pre-scripted narrative. Kohfeldt himself, as he has so many times this season, sported those appalling bloodshot eyes and terrified gaze. The stadium’s PA announcer reminded us all of how much outside assistance the team would require by playing the Eisern Union Anthem over the loudspeakers. A victory alone wasn’t sufficient. The Flingeraner still had to lose against the East Berlin club.
The stage was perfectly set for a Bremen bust. The jumbo-iron conveyed a grim statistic. Today would mark the 1900th Bundesliga fixture in the club’s rich and illustrious history. A nice round number seemed a fitting note on which to end. Köln was clearly about to line-up in a choking 3-6-1. How could this crew hope to find a way through?
Lineup—SV Werder Bremen—(3-5-2)
Initially, it proved quite tough. I could naturally be mistaken about this, but it looked as if Kohfeldt tried to use Milos Veljkovic as a centralized pivot runner. Niklas Moisander and Theodor Gebre Selassie folded in behind the 24-year-old Serb so that he might carry out of the back and throw a few searching balls ahead Mats-Hummels style. Visual evidence of this manifested in the seventh, 13th, 15th, 18th.
In any event, the team couldn’t manage much apart from distance efforts in the opening 20 minutes. Yuya Osako and Milot Raschica had early respective goes in the sixth and seventh. The Japanese international stood as the primary target of all other Bremen players. The ball invariably found his foot on every build. Markus Gisdol’s XI was able to shut down this straightforward strategy easily. By the time any attack reached Niclas Füllkrug, Kölner defenders closed ranks quickly to dispossess him.
With ideas lacking, the relegation-threatened side couldn’t find any gaps to exploit. Cologne defenders Rafael Czichos and Toni Leistner kept space within the box well covered. The best offensive chance of the opening minutes belonged to Köln striker Anthony Modeste, who saw a fierce effort denied by lightning-quick reactions from keeper Jiri Pavlenka. A tactical shift became apparent during a promising Bremen counter in the 20th.
Lineup—SV Werder Bremen—20th minute (4-3-3)
This was a little more in line with what one expected from the beginning. Perhaps it had been the plan all along and it just took the team a bit to nail it down. Within a couple of minutes, Geißböcke center-backs Leistner and Czichos were being effectively split. Sebastiaan Bornauw got pulled forward into the less predictable second Werder attacking axis, stretching the Kölner 3-6-1 out of shape. Too many found themselves lost in midfield.
Marco Friedel, now out of midfield and into a clearly defined fullback role, was able to take advantage of some space on the left flank. He danced around the markers who took far longer to get to him and served up a delectable square ball for Maximillian Eggestein. The 23-year-old German U21 veteran had a perfect opportunity to score his second goal of the season. Instead, he unselfishly declined the all-too-easy shot at glory and shuffled to Osako. A first-rate control and finish put Werder up 1-0.
I am not a man who believes in any sort of divine providence. If there are any Werder fans out there believing that the football gods chose them on this particular day, however, it would be hard to blame them. Shortly after Osako’s goal, the rain in the Westerstadion relented and prominent sunbeams shone through to the pitch. Two minutes after Osako scored, Union Berlin went ahead of Düsseldorf 1-0 in Köpenick. Bremen were suddenly in the relegation playoff place according to the live-table. The opening goals in both fixtures had swung their way. How long could it last?
One minute after Union Berlin went ahead, Milot Rashica doubled Bremen’s advantage. The speedy Kosovar was given far too much space on the left as the Kölner ranks struggled to regroup. We’ve seen the promising youngster make far more out of far less throughout this campaign. Accorded all that time and territory, he was able to carve out a nice shooting angle for himself and slide home past a partially screened Timo Horn.
Two minutes after that, it was Niclas Füllkrug’s turn to finish. Leistner capped a disastrous dive with a flagrant handball. Play continued on despite the fact that many players were looking to the ref. Friedl capitalized with a collection on the left and a nice cross. Füllkrug, fairly or not charged with replacing the numbers of the departed Max Kruse, has had a terrible injury-riddled season. One could argue that his inability to keep fit played a larger role than any other factor in costing Bremen the league. It thus proved pleasing to watch the big summer transfer rush to came Friedl’s blind cross and slot home for only his fourth goal of the campaign.
An incensed Markus Gisdol yanked Leistner and reverted to a back-four. Köln’s tactical realignment neutralized the match for the duration of the first half. The Werderaner still entered the tunnel up 3-0. Over at the Stadion An der alten Försteri, Union Berlin maintained a 1-0 advantage over Fortuna Düsseldorf. While Werder still occupied the playoff place if results held, all Düsselfdorf had to do was score one single goal, earn the draw, and lay claim to the sought after table position with a razor-thin goal differential. Kohfeldt’s men clung to hope by the thinnest of threads.
Gisdol employed two changes at the break while Kohfedlt inserted Josh Sargent to replace Füllkrug. Given the snapshot picture of the time, this did constitute something of a leap of faith. Semi-sweeper Kevin Vogt struggled to keep pace with Köln’s evolving plan. He actually got booked in the 39th, meaning he will be suspended for the first leg of the playoff tie. This was always going to be a risk. Some expected Kohfeldt would opt for Christian Groß to obviate this possibility. In the end, the Bremen manager just had to chance it.
An insane stretch of minutes between the 54th and 58th left those of us trying to track action on multiple screens legitimately cross-eyed. First, Union scored again in their fixture to go up 2-0. This meant that a draw would no longer be enough for the F95. Less than 60 seconds later, Davy Klaasen put Werder up 4-0 at the end of a breathtakingly sensational play. Rashica blazed through the midfield unmolested, eventually to unleash a powerful effort. His deflected shot caromed off the post. With keeper Timo Horn well out of his net, the race was on to reach the rebound. Klaasen won.
An energized Werder continued to press forward. Gebre Selassie tiptoed up the right touchline, hitting Osako in stride on a rearward cross. The Japanese international slapped home to complete a brace against his former club. One could only imagine the convulsions in the stands had there been 40,000+ in attendance at the Weserstadion. It was worth closing one’s eyes to envision the throngs, if only for a moment. The 5-0 lead essentially put the result beyond all doubt.
Köln pulled one back in the 62nd after Rashica exercised poor judgment on a back pass. No matter. The Kosovar would atone for his error four minutes thereafter. He impressively shook off two markers to locate none other than US international Josh Sargent with a brilliantly incisive through ball. The Missouri marvel supplied a sumptuous chip-over finish to beat the onrushing Horn. Sargent came close to scoring again in the 80th and 83rd. Rashica missed the 7-1 by millimeters in the 81st. Niklas Moisander and Veljkovic got their chances in down the stretch.
Bremen can now feel confident heading into the promotion/relegation playoff with second-tier side FC Heidenheim. Their offense can truly come alive when it mattered. Bremen in fact already bested their playoff opponents 4-1 earlier this season in the second round of the DFB-Pokal. While it’s important to stress that the Werderaner haven’t achieved safety in any official sense, Florian Kohfeldt may actually be able to get a decent night’s sleep for the first time in months. With a big home win against in Heidenheim on Thursday, he might start to look human again.
Weekly Wortschatz- “Danksagung”
Players, readers, and writers close a book. The season comes to a close. After 34 installments spanning eleven months and hundreds of pages, so does this individual column. At the end of every book comes the Danksagung (acknowledgements). At the conclusion of German books, the publishers always employ the singular Danksagung even though the author is obviously thanking multitudes of sources. For some reason, the act of expressing thanks merits singular use in German. Unlike other specific issues of linguistic nuance, I’ve no inkling as to why this is so.
There are so many to thank. I thank my friends and family for choosing this space to keep up-to-date on the goings-on inside the German Bundesliga. I thank all those who chose to share even the most fleeting moments of this crazy campaign with me by visiting TRS. My editor obviously deserves an enormous amount of gratitude. His valued time and rigorous eyes made all this possible. Even more importantly, he ensured that a few hundred pages didn’t inadvertently morph into over a thousand. Thanks so much!
Some minds don’t conceive of a project at all without contemplating its finality. For example, when the idea to publish a weekly column on the Bundesliga first came to me one August day, I didn’t even begin to write the first one without making an internal commitment to write 33 more. While such tenacious resolve and steadfast determination aren’t always advantageous, it can come in handy when facing down a foe like COVID. League officials immediately began planning the restart when the world went into lockdown. Detailed planning enabled the DFB to get ahead on matters such as testing, tracing, scheduling, and safety.
Any German will tell you that the completion of the Bundesliga season was never in any serious doubt. We knew that, with the right measures, there would be a way through. That brings me to my final expression of gratitude. As hackneyed as it might sound, I’d like to thank all the citizens of the Bundesrepublik. Germany would not have weathered the initial wave of this virus so well had the citizenry not observed social distancing guidelines immediately.
Furthermore, as I pointed out in the piece preceding the restart itself, the public had to keep up its end of the bargain and not congregate in large numbers outside stadiums or public squares. In stark contrast to what we saw during the first Geisterpiele prior to lockdown, they mostly did. Of course, it helped that we didn’t have the 30 years of pent up elation like the Liverpool fanbase.
Thank you, deutsches Vaterland. Oh, how I miss you. The realities of life often separate the heart from its natural home. It looks as if the pandemic will perpetuate that reality for some time to come. There’s always a chance to virtually congregate over the beautiful game. Thanks for another great season of Bundesliga football.