It’s truly shaping up to be some season in the German Bundesliga; perhaps the most competitive campaign since 2008/09. VfL Wolfsburg, the surprise winners of the league that year, remains in second place after earning a draw against RB Leipzig. Nine clubs sit within numerical striking distance of first place. The top 12 clubs are separated by only seven points.
Everyone’s closer than pages in a book thanks to another wave of surprising results. Borussia Mönchengladbach retains their spot at the top of the table despite losing 0-1 to Borussia Dortmund. All of the other contenders were upset. Eintracht Frankfurt demolished Bayer 04 Leverkusen 3-0 to start the weekend. FC Union Berlin triumphed over SC Freiburg 2-0 while TSG 1899 Hoffenheim knocked off Schalke 04 by the same scoreline. All three were poised to claim top spot with a win, but couldn’t manage even a result.
The weekend’s most thrilling action came in the action-packed Bavarian derby. There wasn’t a single dull moment in Bayern München’s visit to FC Augsburg. Serge Gnabry and the German giants pummeled the hell out of the underdogs, yet couldn’t close them out. Augsburg substitutes Sergio Cordova and Alfred Finnbogason combined beautifully to snatch an equalizer in the first minute of injury time.
Bayern could have claimed the top as well. Instead, they occupy third place courtesy of the 2-2 draw.
Observational Aphorisms- Week Eight
The shock Bayern result yields no shortage of talking points. How could such a dominant team fail to turn the screws on their completely outclassed opposition? The Bavarians squandered chance after chance. One could pin the blame on virtually any player on the pitch. Unfortunately for German fans, the chief culprit was definitely Thomas Müller. The former golden boy enters a new phase of his career. It may very well be all downhill from here.
Introduced in the 80th minute, the openly dissatisfied Müller played with absolutely no confidence and conviction. Minutes after blowing a scoring opportunity that would have put the game to bed, his reluctant and absent-minded play in possession directly led to the turnover that gifted FC Augsburg the equalizer. Müller was always one of those ultra-intelligent players prone to self-induced mental errors and pronounced dips in form. His issues circa 2016 served as an ominous foreshadow for what one witnesses now.
In many respects, Müller’s trajectory reminds one of another German legend who tanked precipitously in his early 30s; one whose recent retirement left us all in a reflective mood this past week. Bastian Schweinsteiger’s career effectively ended at the age of 31. All this talk of Müller moving to a foreign club in the January transfer window leaves one with the feeling that history is about to repeat. It brings me no pleasure to bust out the latin, but the buyer really must beware. Caveat emptor, English Premier League clubs!
Ugh. There were plenty of splitting headaches in store for those attempting to keep tactical notes on the “Battle of the Borussen.” This time Marco Rose and Borussia Mönchengladbach actually kept it fairly straightforward while Lucien Favre and Borussia Dortmund supplied the crosseyed confusion. Injuries to strikers Paco Alcacer and Mario Götze, along with Jadon Sancho’s suspension, led Favre to build a team sheet with three holding midfielders: Julian Weigl, Thomas Delaney, and Axel Witsel. Combined with news that Nico Schulz would also be returning from injury, one couldn’t build any sort of sensible pre-match constellation to at least anticipate how it was going to work.
It immediately got weird when Weigl dropped back to the center-back position and Achraf Hakimi didn’t push into any sort of offensive role. When Hakimi eventually did move forward, he and Julian Brandt immediately switched fields to join Schulz and Thorgan Hazard on the left. Weigl played at right-back for a time with Witsel strangely serving as the attacking right-winger. Favre stacked the left with an odd sort of open ovular 4-1-1-4 which made one rub one’s eyes in disbelief. Thorgan Hazard, Marco Reus, Brandt, and Hakimi all crowded the left. One couldn’t really place Delaney at all. As entertaining an affair as it was, one can’t rightly say there was any plan to replace Sancho on the right. The shape resembled a freaking ear!
With four wins and four draws, Oliver Glasner’s VfL Wolfsburg emerge from the weekend’s action as the Bundesliga’s only undefeated team. They may even consider themselves unlucky to have not grabbed all three points in their visit to Leipzig. The Wolves were by far the better side. Maximillian Arnold failed to convert an indirect free kick from the six-yard mark early. Joao Victor, Josip Brekalo, Wout Weghorst, and captain Joshua Guilavogui all missed chances to nail it down. Glasner’s makeshift 3-4-3 continues to impress. Consider them contenders now. Perhaps they can even, in the spirit of the Zombieland series, rekindle a bit of their 2009 magic.
We’ll label Achim Beierlorzer’s 4-2-3-1, utilized for the second consecutive match, “mildly convincing.” A 3-0 win for 1. FC Köln may have been earned, but given the facts that Simon Terodde got a bit lucky and Paderborn had their chances it could have finished 2-1 or 1-1. With respect to SC Paderborn 07 itself, can’t we just relegate them now? If the team and town magically disappeared and were replaced by Armenia Bielefeld for the duration of the season, I sincerely doubt anyone would notice. Hell, throw VfL Bochum or the Karslruher SC in there and no one would know the difference. Same colors. Same predestined fate.
It’s about damn well time that FC Union Berlin secured their second victory of the season. Some may rue the fact that they killed off what might have been the story of the weekend by defeating potential table-toppers SC Freiburg 2-0. I personally have waited two long months for a suitable excuse to once again hyperlink to Nina Hagen’s “Eisern Union” anthem. No one can refuse this club after hearing that. You’ll find yourself pumping your fists all week long. Go ahead and blast it out of your office cubicle whenever you complete an important project. If co-workers complain, insist that it’s for their own motivational good.
Fortuna Düsseldorf vs. FSV Mainz 05 failed to generate anything of real interest. It was a total stalemate that should have probably ended 0-0. It’s always so indelibly sad to watch a team fail to open a match up even after the opposition gets reduced to 10-men. Nothing else to say. Nothing to see here. It was a piece of shite match that made me yearn to be on the Greenland beat with Rory Smith.
Schalke 04 vs. Hoffenheim wasn’t a great deal better, bestowing upon me a chance to read through another great Rory Smith piece. This one counts as a must-read for all football fans wondering what should be done following the disheartening events in the England vs. Bulgaria match last week. Those of us international football lovers united in our disdain for the scourge of racist taunts and chants, can perhaps get on the same page in terms of what specific consequences UEFA should mete out.
Taking home matches away from repeat offending supporters seems fair. Smith builds a good case.
Weekly Tactical Focus- Garbage Time with Peter Bosz
Leverkusen is in serious trouble, as exemplified by the sloppiest showing of the weekend. Embattled manager Peter Bosz delivered yet another tactical nightmare that saw his talented side yet again look torrid despite holding well over 60 percent possession. This keeps happening because Bosz stubbornly sticks to an inadequate back-three set even though his midfield remains wholly inadequate. We cover this in every blasted column.
The international break did generate some hope that the former Dortmund manager could at least take advantage of the surging form of Kai Havertz, Nadiem Amiri, and Lucas Alario. Confident players returning from successful national team duty are in the mood to take some bold chances. All three looked set for some fearless football. Havertz and Alario both scored in the Germany-Argentina match.
Leave it to Bosz to bring out the absolute worst in them.
Lineup—Bayer Leverkusen—Match Eight (3-3-3-1)
| Lucas Alario |
| Kevin Volland Kai Havertz Nadiem Amiri |
| Mitchell Weiser |
| Kerem Demirbay Julian Baumgartlinger |
| Wendell Sven Bender Alexsandr Dragovic |
| Lukas Hradecky |
To put it in German colloquial parlance, “oh je.” What a travesty. This had to be the most hideous horror seen in the Bundesliga since Julian Nagelsmann’s 3-3-2-2 back in Round 4. With midfield staple Charles Aranguiz injured and fullback Daley Sinkgraven also unavailable, Bosz had to get creative. Knowing that, perhaps he had a few too many pops before coming up with this one. No sober mind would draw something like this up.
Insofar as I could tell, the idea was for Mitchell Weiser to serve as a flexible wing-back. This in itself constituted an imbecilic idea as it pitted him directly against Martin Hinteregger and Flip Kostic; two players in scintillating form. How in the hell was Weiser supposed to contain both of them whilst simultaneously taking cross-pitch cornerstone traffic responsibilities? What the shit?
Kostic made mincemeat out of the completely misplaced Weiser. Had Eintracht’s Serbian sensation not been so uncharacteristically unselfish after completely blowing the insanely bad Leverkusen defensive ranks out of the water in the 23rd, we could have witnessed an early rout. It should have been 3-0 before the half-hour mark. The disastrous plan wasn’t abandoned soon enough.
A pretty combination play with Kai Havertz on an offensive push wasn’t enough to save Weiser from the embarrassing 30th-minute yank. Bosz brought on Karim Bellarabi for his flustered right-wing-back and attempted to put the subbed on striker alongside Lucas Alario in 3-5-2. For the rest of the evening, none of the Werkself could get their sprinting lanes straight. Possession counts for naught when all the attacking arteries are clogged.
Whenever one sees something like this, announcers are quick to note “the team appears to be running out of ideas in the attacking third” or “execution fails them in the danger area.” These are apt enough descriptions, but the problem truly originates with the cluttered lanes. Kerem Demirbay, who I’m being generous in assigning a static spot on the fourth axis, got in everyone’s way all night.
Kevin Volland and Sven Bender couldn’t keep their streaks straight either. Havertz and Alario, who did both produce some noteworthy moments of creativity, never knew exactly where their colleagues might be on the cutbacks. Karim Bellarabi managed to spring the Frankfurt defensive lock twice. Mostly, however, one observed him looking for a breaking runner or a trailing overlap that didn’t exist.
This team quite literally teems with talent. Die Werkself boasts a cumulative 88 percent pass completion rate and, as a team, lead the league in total distance covered. They’ve also dominated possession in all eight of their Bundesliga fixtures, never falling below 65 percent against any of their opponents. Bosz’ Incoherent tactics prove such a waste. Though I always look forward to writing a recantation piece, I think we can expect more of the same midweek against Athletico.
Weekly Wortschatz-“Revierderby”
Oh yes. It’s time for the 103rd edition of the football derby that puts most every other one to shame. Next week the “Rivals of the Rohr” meet in Gelsenkirchen. For fans of the Bundesliga, there’s nothing quite like Schalke-Dortmund. It’s the greatest working-class derby in all of football. The arch-rivals both have a chance at topping the table and are eager to please their zealous supporters after trading home losses last year.
So many memories. I entertained the idea of writing an entire column on the best historic encounters between the Ruhrpott adversaries. I had to jettison the notion upon realizing that it would clock in at approximately 1,200 pages and require me to requisition the universe for a week that contained 10 days and 240 hours. Suffice to say that fans all over the globe should, if they only plan on watching one Bundesliga match all year, definitely make this the one.
We’ll keep it numbers-based for those who need a little extra incentive. Twenty-three goals have been scored in the last five additions alone. Both clubs have outsold their maximum stadium capacity for every fixture for the last 22 years. High scoring comebacks are common. None shall forget when Jürgen Klopp’s Schwarz-Gelben came back from 0-3 down to draw in 2008. Nearly a decade later, the Königsblauen returned the favor with their own extraordinary erasure of a 0-4 deficit in 2017.
Jens Lehman’s goal. The 2006/07 title race. Leroy Sané’s coming out party. The madness of the six goals and two red cards in last Spring’s encounter. I need to stop before I accidentally end up writing the bloody 1,200 pages. These two teams shall leave it all on the field. Even those of us Germans with no Ruhrpott connections don’t miss out on the “Rivalen an der Ruhr.” Make sure you don’t either!