Drama galore in the Bundesliga
BERLIN: While the final Bundesliga weekend before a short winter break provided lots of late drama, that doesn’t mean the German league is a thrilling and big international player as well.
“Entertainment beats class,” said the headline in yesterday’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung digital sports edition editorial, adding that such a league with little success in Europe is hard to sell abroad.
Bayern Munich are the sole survivors in the Champions League, Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund have been relegated to the Europa League and are the only German sides there as Hoffenheim, Hertha Berlin and Cologne all went out in the group stage.
As a result, German football must still mainly rely on Bayern and the national team – aiming to defend theirs World Cup title at Russia 2018 – for international recognition.
But even the five-time reigning champions Bayern ended the first half of the domestic season with their lowest tally in six years, 41 points – and they will nonetheless still hibernate at least 10 points clear.
Things didn’t look bright at first, and coach Carlo Ancelotti had to go with their 2013 treblewinning coach Jupp Heynckes called out of retirement.
Bayern have since shown some flair again but even more plenty of pragmatism such as winning the last three games 1-0 – helped by goalkeeper Sven Ulreich saving a stoppagetime penalty in Stuttgart on Saturday.
“Perhaps we have the quality and the cleverness to get results even when things aren’t going so well,” forward Thomas Mueller said.
Still to come before the break is a cup match against holders Borussia Dortmund – originally seen as Bayern’s main league rival. Dortmund started strongly with 19 out of 21 possible points in the first seven matchdays for a five-point lead but then had a complete meltdown to fall 14 points behind Bayern.
New coach Peter Bosz had to go a week ago and his replacement Peter Stoeger got them back on winning tracks, including Saturday’s 2-1 against Hoffenheim from Christian Pulisic’s 89th-minute winner.
Schalke, Mainz and Augsburg all got stoppagetime equalisers on Saturday in a league where only Bayern stand out at the top and Cologne at the end – 11 points from safety even though they finally got their first season win, 1-0 over Wolfsburg, in the 17th game.
“We have 17 finals ahead of us,” said coach Stefan Ruthenbeck, still hoping his team can produce a miracle despite the second-worst league tally ever after the first half of the season, a meagre six points.
Between Cologne and Bayern there are 16 teams who can all beat each other – or in the case of Hoffenheim and Borussia Moenchengladbach even mighty Bayern. But Gladbach crashed 3-0 at Wolfsburg a week later, and even last season’s runnersup Leipzig have shown inconsistent form such as being humbled 4-0 at Hoffenheim.
Schalke famously fought back from 4-0 down to a 4-4 draw at their arch-rivals Dortmund, and Freiburg overcame a 3-0 deficit at Cologne to win 4-3 – before they blew a 3-1 lead in Augsburg in stoppage time for a 3-3 draw.
The live tests of video refereeing also made waves with some 35 decisions corrected in the first 16 rounds.