Browsing the 1.Bundesliga: Matchday 17

Snow Was Freezing to the Ball

Bad English Edition

While the English players mostly sat at home and certain football channels scrambled to find live football to fill its airwaves, Bundesliga found a way to complete its entire Matchday 17 fixture list.  With 36 goals scored over the 9 matches, it seems inclement weather bodes well for that hearty German game.

As this was the final Matchday of 2010, here’s a brief run-down of all the weekend’s matches.  After all, when I see you smile, it creates such a warm and fuzzy feeling inside that no amount of snow or ice could block the way straight to your heart.

Frontzeck Frangoes Die Fohlen
Borussia M’gladbach v Hamburg SV Highlights

Borussia Moechengladbach ended 2010 without a single win at home in league play as Hamburger SV took an odd Piotr Trochowski free kick to win 2-1 at Borussia Park.

The 1st half ended scoreless, but not for a lack of effort on the part of M’gladbach.  Michael Bradley in particular featured heavily in this match with 3 shots on goal.  He was denied giving the Foals the lead in the 25th minute with a chance dealt away by GK Rost.  Armin Veh’s decision to drop Horseface van NistelRuud for Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting–who could likely bring you a high score on Scrabble but not on the pitch–appeared to backfire as he created no chances and did little to stop the advances of Bradley and Juan Arango on the right side of Hamburg’s midfield.

Veh’s other Dutchman–Eljero Elia–provided the breakthrough for the Hamburglars to begin the 2nd half with a goal in the 46th minute.  The lead was shorter than Bradley the Lesser’s hair, though, as M’gladbach equalized in the 48th through Igor deCamargo.  Bradley–who was controlling the midfield throughout the 2nd half–dribbled to the left side of the penalty box and crossed in for deCamargo to level the match.  Bradley almost had another assist in the 70th by releasing Thorben Marx for a shot blasted right into GK Rost’s face.

A free kick by Trochowski just outside the penalty area was inexplicably NOT DEALT WITH BY ANY DEFENDER and allowed to trickle into the M’gladbach goal to give Hamburg the 2-1 advantage in the 72nd minute. Now needing another goal to secure at least a draw, Foals manager Michael Frontzeck made the wise decision and substituted Bradley the Lesser for Mohamadou Idrissou in the 78th minute.

Wait, what?

Once Bradley was off, the M’gladbach center caved, Hamburg were able to keep more of the ball, and any sustainable pressure on the Hamburg goal for Die Fohlen to equalize went off the pitch with Deathstare’s son.  Unless Bradley was injured–and there’s been no indication that he was–his substitution was an absolutely dreadful decision by Frontzeck.  Perhaps this is why M’gladbach are staring at relegation–poor managerial decisions and a defense that’s now shipped 47 goals.

Die Knappen Catch Billygoats Napping
Schalke 04 v FC Koeln Highlights

Raul was truly a hat trick hero as his three goals powered Schalke 04 past a Koeln side that was toothless in attack.  With the three points, Schalke 04 closed out its first half still in 10th position but only 7 points out of a Europa League spot.  1.FC Koeln will begin 2011 trying to escape its relegation playoff position.

Having both starting forwards Lukas Podolski and Milivoje Novakovic off due to injury, the Billygoats had little to threaten Germany’s No. 1 GK Manuel Neuer.  Cobbling together a total of 6 shots with only 1 on goal, Koeln barely matched Raul’s individual stats–6 shots, 5 on goal, 3 goals.  If you’re a fan of Die Königsblauen, the 3 points was a bit comforting–especially if you had purchased the club’s jinx Christmas cards–but there is some cause for concern.

Of Raul’s goals, 2 came from some truly awful defending and were basically early Yule Tide gifts from the Billygoats.  Also, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar has gone a bit Simple Minds lately–having not scored since mid-November in league play.  His passing was fairly poor in this one and when your rather pricey strikers is playing 2nd fiddle to the elder statesman on the forward line, one has to wonder if 2011 will be better for the Hunter.

Blitzkreig, Indeed

Werder Bremen v Kaiserslautern Highlights

Srdjan Lakic scored within 24 seconds of the start and the Red Devils romped to a 2-1 victory in an entertaining affair at the Weserstadion.  It was entertaining if you weren’t in goal at least–with a total of 40 shots taken, this match could easily have been one of the higher scoring ties of the matchday.

If the weight of another loss in front of the home crowd was heavy on Werder gaffer Thomas Schaaf–it showed.  He substituted LB Pisanen for striker Sandro Wagner in the 26th minute.  The move worked somewhat–Werder retained 58% possession–and the attacking runs of Marko Marin finally paid off with a penalty call.  Forgetting that legal screens look like this–Lautern defender Mathias Abel provided the windshield to Marin’s mosquito, and Aaron Hunt was able to convert the subsequent penalty in the 34th minute.  Everything was square at 1-1 as the 2nd half began.

Continuing where he left off in the 1st half, Lakic ran through the rather porous Werder midfield–who were having James Milner-esque problems with gravity–for a strike in the 52nd minute to give  Die roten Teufel the 2-1 lead it would not relinquish.  Marin nearly had a response just a minute later but was unable to convert.

Chances were numerous as both sides disregarded the notion of midfield defending, but even when 1.FCK went down to 10 men in the 72nd minute for LB Alexander Bugera destroying Marin’s knee–Werder were unable to capitalize.  Schaaf’s earlier change of inserting an additional striker for a defender was nullified as Wagner himself was sent off in the 84th minute for his 2nd yellow card.

With the 3 points, Kaiserslautern moved back up to 12th position and–with FC Koeln awaiting on the other side of the break–could look at moving to the top half of the table in the 2nd half of the season.  Werder is now 14th and only 4 points away from the relegation zone.  Surely, Werder Bremen will get it together–after all, aren’t they “too big to fail?”

Mortimer Ichabod Marker Is Highly Impressed
VfL Wolfsburg v 1899 Hoffenheim Highlights

Another Wolfsburg match–another draw.  This time, however, Steve McClaren’s lads fought back from a 2-0 1st half deficit to earn the point against a Hoffenheim squad that has a +10 goal differential but still maddeningly sits mid-table.  Although the upper stands looked rather empty in the Volkswagen Arena, those home supporters that were there were able to enjoy in a group-effort schmeering on Schteve.

Simon Kjaer showed a bit of his youthfulness in the 1st half by being both brilliant and terrible at times.  The Wolfsburg CB was all over the back early going as Wolves seemed unable to clear the ball from its zone over the 1st 10 minutes.  Gustavo for Die Hoffe looked dangerous from the off but Kjaer was seemingly everywhere, blunting chances against GK Diego Benaglio and shifting up to catch the advancing 1899 players for a few offsides calls, including a Vedad Ibisevic goal in the 15th minute disallowed for offsides.

Kjaer almost turned in an assist in the 20th minute–with a long punt upfield that found Mario Mandzukic with a shot on Hoffenheim’s GK Haas. Mandzukic attempted to chip Haas though, and the ball landed on the top netting.

Then, Kjaer made a mistake that allowed Hoffenheim to take the lead late in the 1st half.  With Gustavo advancing on the ball, Kjaer opted to back off rather than run up and challenge, giving Gustavo the space to crack a beauty of a shot that Benaglio could do nothing with.  1-0 to the richest village team in the 34th minute.

Hoffenheim doubled it’s lead in the 40th minute from Icelandic midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson.  Slid in by an Ibesvic through ball, Gylfi demonstrated that he can score from open play–thus warming the cockles of our blogfather’s heart.  It was 2-0 to 1899 at the break, and McClaren was acting like he needed to change his puffy coat for something a bit more institutional when seen on the sidelines.

With CB Mathias Jaissle playing Edin Dzeko so tight in the match, it appeared Wolfsburg’s chances for even a draw were slight.  A return of Grafite to begin the 2nd half did little to affect the scoreline until the 75th minute where–after a run near Haas’s near post–he crossed the ball in for fellow Brazilian Diego to score and make it 2-1.

Jaissle was substituted for Josip Simunic in the 79th minute–freeing Dzeko of his own personal strait-jacket.  Dzeko knocked home the equalizer for Wolfsburg in stoppage time and Ralf Rangnick might have rued the need to substitute Jaissle.  Shared points is becoming a bit of a habit for both clubs–it was the 4th consecutive time for Hoffenheim and the 6th straight time for Wolfsburg.  Hoffenheim will need to devise a way for 2011 to include more wins with all those goals whilst McClaren will have to hope his side can advance in the DFB Pokal so that he has a 2011 to gameplan.

Gotten By The Greek
Eintracht Frankfurt v Borussia Dortmund Highlights

Borussia Dortmund ended the 1st half of Bundesliga 2010-2011 just as it began–with a loss.  This time, it was off a scorcher by Theofanis Gekas that gave BvB its first null result since Matchday 1.  The loss tightened the gap between Dortmund and the other title contenders and makes that Matchday 18 fixture with Bayer Leverkusen all the more intriguing.

Eintracht played an effective high line defensively to deny those trademark runs that Kagawa and Goetze have thrived on all season.  There was even a Rico Clark sighting and he nearly had a shock goal on Dortmund but headed the corner kick wide left in the 31st minute.  Clark even was seen playing a decent piece of defending as well–clearing a very dangerous scoring move by Dortmund in the 39th minute.  

Although the high line had been working well and leading to a number of offsides calls on BvB, Kagawa and Barrios looked to be getting the timing down on crosses sent in by Grosskreutz and Goetze as the match hit the halfway mark.

That fine lady Luck–who had been on Dortmund’s side most of this season–didn’t travel with them to the Commerzbank Arena on this matchday.  The stalemate remained late into the match with Gekas remaining quiet for Eintracht whilst Nuri Sahin’s trademark curling touches on the ball weren’t being cashed in.  Eintracht’s GK Faehrmann almost gifted BvB with the lead around the hour mark with several indecisive moves on chips by Kagawa and Sahin.  

A potential penalty on Eintracht for a foul on Lewandowski in the box went uncalled in the 80th minute.  Barrios completely fluffed the winning shot for BvB in the 84th minute.

Juergen Klopp would rue the missed sitter by Barrios because 2 minutes later, Gekas rose like the Eagle of Zeus and powered a shot past GK Weidenfeller for the 1-0 lead.  A cross into the box by Sebastian Jung was laid off smartly in the center for Gekas to approach from the left and crack a shot that stunned Weidenfeller and BvB.  Wiedenfeller later earned a yellow card for yanking the ball away from a Frankfurt player in an attempt for a quick kick upfield for an equalizer near the death.  Temper, temper.

Eintracht Frankfurt held though–a poorly taken corner kick by Nuri Sahin punctuating the proceedings for Borussia Dortmund.  Dortmund still end 2010 in good shape–with the draw to Atletico in Europa League play and having already been knocked out of the German Cup, BvB only have the league to play for.  The lead at the top is still double digits, but a 10 point gap looks more vulnerable than a 13 point one.

They Played, Somebody Won
1.FC Nuremberg v Hannover 96 Highlights

Lost amidst the noise of more attractive matches, Dieter Hecking’s Nuremberg side broke its long winless streak and ended high-flying Hannover’s 5 match win streak with a 3-1 win at the Frankenstadion.  This one appears to have been a kicky-fouly affair with 47 fouls and 5 yellow cards handed out. 

Hannover captain Steve Cherundolo gave Der Club the advantage in the 28th minute with an own-goal off an Ilkay Gundogan shot.  Nuremberg doubled its lead in the 31st minute off a set piece converted by Andreas Wolf. 

The 96ers maintained some offsensive pressure in the 2nd half as Mirko Slomka took off both Lars Stindl and Abdellaoue to create something–anything really–from his right flank.  Both Stindl and Abdellaoue had the least amount of touches of the starting XI and neither was very successful when he did touch the ball.

A penno for handball was awarded to Hannover and Sergio Pinto was able to cut Nuremberg’s lead to 2-1 in the 75th minute.  Silky Ilkay was having none of that, however, and his cross into the penalty area 7 minutes later found Julian Schieber for 1.FCN to take a 3-1 win. 

Bruchweg Redux
St Pauli v Mainz 05 Highlights

Mainz 05 looked much as it did at the beginning of the season thanks to the return of Lewis Holtby to the starting XI and the O-Fivers cruised past struggling St Pauli 4-2 at the Millerntor Stadion.  One hopes the sausage train ran on time for home supporters to suffocate their sorrows in pork and drown their dreariness in beer.

The opening minutes featured all we had come to expect of Mainz as it romped to 7 consecutive wins to begin the season.  Andre Schuerrle struck for Mainz in the 11th minute from an Adam Szalai cross into the box.  Szalai ran onto a ball released by Lewis Holtby from midfield. 

Geez, Thomas Tuchel–one wonders where that attacking verve has been during the  previous rough patch that saw your side drop from 2nd to 4th in the table.

Oh, it–Holtby–was sitting on your bench, right next to Andreas Ivanschitz–IVANSCHITZ!   Holtby worked well with RM Marco Caligiuri in opening up the R flank of St Pauli and played all along the front for Mainz. 

There were times when Caligiuri remained a bit too forward while linking up with Holtby in attaack and was allowing huge chunks of pitch for St Pauli to exploit on counter attacks through Marius Ebbers or Rouwen Hennings.  St Pauli, though, just couldn’t string together enough passes to mount much of a threat in the 1st half.

Schuerrle earned his brace in the 28th minute off a mess in front of St Pauli’s goal.  Christian Fuchs–properly returned to his LB role–crossed into the box beautifully but the resultant shot went astray.  St Pauli failed to deal with the loose ball and it bounced to Schuerrle to poke it home inside the near post.  With the way Mainz 05 were playing, the match looked to be a rout.

A handball in the penalty area on LM Elkin Soto gave St Pauli a penalty it converted in the 33rd through Mattthias Lehmann to make the score 2-1.  Ebbers could have been called for a handball himself in the area while back defending against another Mainz offensive move around the 36th minute, but the referee kept his finger to himself.  After all, he didn’t know where that finger had been.

Szalai did make it 3-1 to Mainz in the 41st off a long distance free kick from Fuchs.  The kick from Fuchs was lovely as it landed perfectly to Szalai’s boot for him to crank it into the top L corner to restore the 2 goal advantage.

Traveling for a family holiday bash not organized by Ledley King prevented a full viewing of this match, but the outcome was never in doubt.  Goals by Lehmann of St Pauli and Caligiuri of Mainz 05 on the other side of the half finished the scoring at 4-2 in favor of Mainz.

Breisgau Bumble Bounce
Bayer 04 Leverkusen v SC Freiburg Highlights

In the driving snow, SC Freiburg took a point away from BayArena as Bayer Leverkusen failed to capitalize on BvB’s earlier loss to Eintracht.  Patrick Helmes rescued a point for the Werkself in a match much more even than the statistics demonstrate.

Leverkusen earned a bit of a dubious penalty when Tranquillo Barnetta looked to have stumbled in the slush rather than being brought down by Julian Schuster in the penalty area.  Vidal converted the penno in the 16th for an early 1-0 lead.

Rather than being bundled off the ball by the likes of Manuel Friedrich and Stefan Reinhartz, Jan Rosenthal was able to chest down a cross from F Stefan Reisinger at the top of the box to whip the ball past back-up Bayer GK Fabian Giefer to level the match in the 24th minute. 

Reisinger–playing in place of the suspended Papiss Demba Cisse–at first appeared to be a non-factor early in the match.  After the assist to Rosenthal, though, he warmed to his role and caused havoc for the back four of Leverkusen, stunning the BayArena faithful with a score of his own in the 65th minute.  Despite having around 36% possession of the ball, Freiburg had a 2-1 lead with 20 minutes to go.

Stefan Kiessling–how many Stefans were in this match, anyway?–replaced an ineffective Derdiyok in the 66th and Patrick Helmes was brought on for Arturo Vidal 5 minutes later to scratch back an equalizer. 

Helmes appeared to have tied the match around the 70th minute but his goal was rightly disallowed for offsides.  Spongebob’s sidekick was able to finally equalize in the 75th minute after a Kiessling cross into the box was deflected by a Freiburg defender right to Helmes to slot it home past promising German GK Oliver Baumann.   

The shared points dropped Leverkusen down to 3rd whilst SC Freiburg ended the matchday down to 6th.  Robin Dutt, though, might have found another useful outfield player in Reisinger to slot into the starting XI when Cisse returns–or after some English club buy him.

Labbadia Sees Best, Worst of Swabians
VfB Stuttgart v Bayern Munich Highlights

More should be written about this, but time is short and I’ve got this yard of licorice to eat, so quickly–eight goals, no defending, Gomez with a hat trick as Bayern beat Stuttgart on Bruno Labbadia’s 1st match managing the Swabians.  Bayern almost gave away a 3-0 halftime lead away at the Mercedes-Benz Arena.

Thomas Mueller and Scarface Ribery each had a goal in the 1st half after Gomez began the scoring in the 31st minute.  Martin Harnick had a brace for Stuttgart that made Die Roten supporters nervous in the 2nd half even after Gomez had brought the match to 5-1 by the 54th minute. 

A goal from Christian Gentner in the 70th minute had Swabia dreaming of an unreal comeback with the score at 5-3, but his was the finale as Bayern held out for only its 2nd away win of the season. 

The three points left Bayern one point shy of Louis van Gaal’s points target for the mid-season, but Bayern will begin 2011 only 4 points out of Champions League qualification.  With Miroslav Klose re-appearing in this match and with a Robben return around the corner, there might be more joy in Munich than there is in Mudville–A.K.A Suttgart–at the moment..

EMBED STUTTGART V BAYERN

At the Midseason:

1. Borussia Dortmund on 43 points and +29 GD
2. Mainz 05 on 33 points and + 11 GD
3. Bayer 04 Leverkusen on 33 points and + 10 GD
4. Hannover 96 on 31 points and -2 GD
5. Bayern Munich on 29 points and + 11 GD
6. SC Freiburg on 28 points and 0 GD
7. Eintracht Frankfurt on 26 points and + 3 GD
8. TSG Hoffenheim on 25 points and + 10 GD
9. Hamburg SV on 24 points and -1 GD
10. Schalke 04 on 22 points and + 1 GD
11. FC Nuremberg on 22 points and -6 GD
12. Kaiserslautern on 21 points and 0 GD
13. VfL Wolfsburg on 19 points and – 1 GD
14. Werder Bremen on 19 points and -12 GD
15. St Pauli on 17 points and -14 GD
16. FC Koeln on 15 points and -15 GD
17. VfB Stuttgart on 12 points and -3 GD
18. Borussia Moechengladbach on 10 points and -21 GD