Herbstmeister!

The winter break has arrived in Germany and, judging by the level of both quality and animosity shown on matchday 17, it's come none too soon for players, staff and officials alike.

With 1899 Hoffenheim hosting Schalke 04 on Sunday, Bayern Munich had the chance to really exert some pressure on the league's 'new kids on the block' in their game in Stuttgart the day before. And with a minute remaining at the Mercedes-Benz Arena it looked as though they may have done just that. After Sami Khedira had given his side the lead on the stroke of half-time, the Bavarians had fought back, firstly through a Tim Borowski rebound and then via a 66th minute Luca Toni tap-in, to lead approaching the latter stages.

However, Stuttgart appear an entirely different proposition under former Bayern Munich player Markus Babbel and, having gained a numerical advantage due to what can only be described as a fly-kick to the face from Massimo Oddo, they levelled as the game entered its dying embers, as the impressive Khedira struck again. With Jens Lehmann up and the visitors hanging on by a thread, the striker unleashed an unstoppable volley past Michael Rensing for his fifth of the campaign to leave red-faced manager Uli Hoeness grumbling over the calendar, which somehow dared not to recognise the might of Munich and award them a Sunday fixture in this of all weeks.

That meant that Hoffenheim needed only a point from their meeting with Schalke on Sunday to be crowned 'Herbstmeister' or Autumn Champions (a meaningful accolade in German football). Unfortunately, deep into the second half of a ferocious encounter they trailed to a 40th minute Gerald Asamoah opener, and it seemed as if Bayern had recovered from their woeful start to the season and somehow done the impossible again.

But an explosive final quarter of the match saw Jermaine Jenas-clone Jermaine Jones and his midfield colleague Orlando Engelaar being given their marching orders, with right-back Rafinha extraordinarily escaping a deserved dismissal for a reckless lunge on Fejae Salihovic by the touchline, before substitute Selim Teber rammed home a free-kick with 15 minutes to play, to which Manuel Neuer got a strong hand, to equalise and claim the Herbstmeisterschaft on home soil. Hoffenheim trainer Ralf Rangnick downplayed the achievement after the game but to hold off the never-ending challenge of Bayern and get to the midway point on top was no mean feat and bodes extremely well for the rest of the season and any hopes of European football at the Rhein Neckar Stadion in 2009.

Outside of the top two, leading the chasing pack into the new year will be Hertha BSC. The boys from Berlin ended the first half of the campaign on a high note with a 4-0 home drubbing of lowly Karlsruhe. Although three goals came in the last quarter of an hour, it was the style of football on display that will surely have pleased Swiss coach Lucien Favre immensely and perhaps convinced him that the future remains bright, despite the seemingly impending departure of talisman and fans' hero Marko Pantelic, who appeared to be bidding farewell to his adoring public at the Olympiastadion on Saturday.

Despite being given a rare opportunity to play a full 90 minutes by his trainer against Karlsruhe he was unable to provide a fairytale finish to his time in the German capital. But this proved irrelevant to the result as an early Maximilian Nicu strike was kept company by superb goals from all three substitutes in the closing stages. First Valeri Domovchiyski climbed off the bench and latched onto a Jaroslav Drobny punt to emphasise the gulf in class on show with a well-taken shot from close range, then Fabian Lustenberger completed a sublime passage of play by tucking away at the second attempt and Raffael finished emphatically after another flowing move with a low drive into the far corner. The Karlsruhe captain kept his colleagues out on the pitch for a long time after the whistle - it looks like being a very long season for his weary warriors. For Hertha's young side, it seems, the sky's the limit this season, particularly if they are to win against all odds in Greece this Thursday and enter the knock-out stages of the UEFA Cup. Watch this space.

Fourth will be Martin Jol's Hamburg following an unconvincing 1-0 home victory over Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday. They were forced to rely upon a pin-point Piotr Trochowski centre finding the head of leading scorer Mladen Petric just before the hour mark to seal the points, the big Croat's downward header holding just enough power to find its way past the unfortunate Oka Nikolov in the Frankfurt goal. After their unspeakable capture of last week's award for 'Tor der Woche' (Goal of the Week) for an aforementioned free-kick from the touchline which the opposing keeper just got horribly wrong, it seems this will be the only thing that Frankfurt will be winning this season. More work is also required for Hamburg, one feels, if they are to challenge for big honours both at home and abroad come May.

In fifth place are Bayer Leverkusen after they were held to a 1-1 draw at home by struggling Energie Cottbus. They had originally led through Simon Rolfes' second goal of the season but having constantly threatened during the second half Cottbus eventually earned their share of the points by way of a last minute 'ausgleich' (equaliser) from unlikely hero Jiayi Shao. Oh yeah, you heard me. Jiayi Shao. Write that name down.

In the first half, Patrick Helmes was guilty of executing the most archetypal, straight-out-of-the-textbook version of a 'Toni' (That is, the trademark of the Italian idiot whereby he swings his favoured foot wildly at the ball without a whiff of technique or ability at an angle to goal from inside the area and manages to not only find row Z seat 54 with his wayward 'shot' but also finds himself flat on his arse - the same arse that has scored more times than his foot, favoured or otherwise, this term I would imagine) that I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing.

On Friday night the two 'Borussias' met, fittingly at Borussia Park, as Dortmund played host to Mönchengladbach in what would have been, in the 1980's, heading the bill this weekend. As it was, the only fixture of the day was more than memorable for the calibre of the goals scored as well as confrontations elsewhere. A sumptuous solo strike from Mohammed Zidan set the tone for a highly eventful evening, as he chested the ball down and unleashed a furious effort that soared high into the top corner of the net, but it was the basketball in the build-up from midfielder Tinga that would have caught the spectators’ eyes, if not those of the referee.

Tamas Hajnal was then sent off for Dortmund after leaving a gash the size of one of Paul Merson's lines above the knee of Gladbach keeper Christofer Heimroth for his second yellow card of the night and 18-year-old Tony Jantschke was stretchered off as a result of some rough treatment in the form of a leading elbow from Dortmund's Jakub Blaszczykowski, leaving him battered, bruised and more than a little groggy, before Dortmund trainer Jurgen Klopp reacted irately to a fan's treatment of one of his players to spark emotional scenes both on and off the pitch.

Substitute striker Nuri Sahin then confidently controlled the ball 12 yards from goal with his first touch and scored his first Bundesliga goal with his second to leave Borussia D firmly in charge. But the goal of the game was still to come. Johannes van den Bergh's strike mattered little in the end, but that won't stop me writing about it. As the ball was headed out to him via an ineffectual delivery from a corner, the defender let fly to score an absolute pearler from well outside the 18-yard box, and the youngster watched in disbelief with the rest of us as his left-footed volley nestled nicely in the top corner of the Dortmund goal. Dortmund will remain sixth over Christmas, Gladbach will be propping up them and the rest in 18th.

Having scored 5 and won against each of the top three teams this season (5-4 vs Hoffenheim (h); 5-2 vs Bayern (a); 5-1 vs Hertha (h)) Werder Bremen will feel a little aggrieved at entering the winterval (I'm trying it out) in only 8th position in the table. On the other hand, judging from their performances overall this season they should feel satisfied that they remain a mere 9 points behind the leaders after their worst first half performance in nearly a decade.

On Saturday they overcame Wolfsburg, who are badly missing the striking Brazilian neck-injury victim Grafite, by 2 goals to 1 at the Weserstadion to climb two places and end 2008 in the top half, which had seemed highly unlikely on numerous occasions this season. With Diego and Pizarro suspended (Diego was retrospectively given a bizarre 4-game ban for grabbing an opponent's throat last weekend), Baumann and Naldo relegated to the bench and a whole host of others unavailable, the commentator on their version of MOTD introduced the show by warning all viewers, including Werder fans, not to feel out of the loop for not recognising Said Husejinovic, Werder's makeshift striker partnering Markus Rosenberg for the afternoon. Apparently nobody knows him. Nobody. They're not even sure if the manager knows him, although coach Thomas Schaaf does have a Wenger-esque reputation in Germany for plucking precious gems from remote regions.

Despite Wolfsburg taking an alarmingly early lead through a tame near-post effort from Christian Gentner that Tim Wiese could only palm into his side-netting, Werder fought back with some impressive, high-tempo football and deservedly cancelled out the away side's opener with a glanced Per Mertesacker header in the 27th minute. The decisive stroke wasn't to come until well into the second half, though, after Wiese had again raised eyebrows by attempting to clear one through-ball using a mid-air scissor kick with which he failed to connect. A Mesut Ozil pull-back was met by the Wolves' leader Josue with half an hour to play and this found its way into the corner for the winner. The unknown Husejinovic celebrated the goal as if it was his own and at one point I thought he was audaciously claiming it, but I think he was just happy to have a job to do in these uncertain times.

In the spirit of injury crises requiring the presence of unknown entities, Hannover went into their game against Arminia Bielefeld at the AWD Arena on Saturday without the injured German number 1 Robert Enke as well as his understudy, Florian Fromlowitz, after he was sent off last week in Wolfsburg - a decision which led to midfielder Jan Rosenthal donning the keeper's jersey and promptly saving a penalty. Third-choice stopper Morten Jensen made his first Bundesliga appearance but was far less occupied than his opposite number, as a spate of chances for the home side finally created a break of the deadlock after half an hour when a Jiri Stajner header found the back of the net after a well-worked corner routine. But 'Wichniarminia' were not to be denied and 'King' Artur Wichniarek notched his 10th and his team's 15th goal of the current campaign to take a point. Both sides hover just above the drop-zone in 13th and 14th place respectively and will need to improve in the second half of the season if they wish to stay in the top flight for another year.

Lastly, (thought i'd let u know it was winding down) Vfl Bochum took on FC Köln at the rewirpower Stadion, also on Saturday. Bochum trainer Marcel Koller is not popular in Köln after taking charge of the Westerners for only four matches 5 years ago but contriving to extraordinarily take them down within that time-frame, and he now finds himself equally disliked at Bochum, where fans demonstrated against the trainer after a disappointing defeat rubbed salt into open wounds and highlighted the need for change at the club following 12 losses out of their 17 games played so far.

Both sides may quite reasonably have felt hard done by after the game due to a dismal refereeing performance. A poor decision on the brink of half-time led to Kevin Mckenna giving the visitors the lead with a bullet header, but there were really no excuses for Bochum's equaliser as Christoph Dabrowski's header sneaked past the keeper, as well as some comical defending on the line. Thomas Broich will point to an uneven bounce as the reason for his misjudgement of a weak effort on goal but frankly that would be unfair, not only to Dabrowski and Bochum, but to the reputation of football itself.

Then the fireworks began. With 7 minutes left on the clock the 'man' in the middle, who looked around 10 or 11 at most, bafflingly sent off Köln's Pedro Geromel for a well-timed challenge and booked Milivoje Novakovic for his protestations. Then, after the interception of a set-piece, Köln were allowed to run the length of the field and Manasseh Ishiaku was presented with a open goal from 5 yards that he couldn't miss. And finally, Novakovic was shown a second yellow card for diving, having run the pitch-length unopposed again and being bundled over by a very clumsy challenge, from behind, in the box, as he was about to pull the trigger and secure the win. I'm not twisting it, I'm not writing an opinion, that's just what happened. The ref was THAT good. Bochum stay in trouble and languish in 17th position while Köln sit comfortably in 11th as the Bundesliga goes into hibernation.

Here is the full run-down of results:

Dortmund 2-1 Gladbach
Bochum 1-2 Köln
Hamburg 1-0 Frankfurt
Hannover 1-1 Bielefeld
Hertha 4-0 Karlsruhe
Leverkusen 1-1 Cottbus
Stuttgart 2-2 Bayern
Werder 2-1 Wolfsburg
Hoffenheim 1-1 Schalke

Bundesliga Table at the half-way point of the 2008/9 season:

1. 1899 Hoffenheim 17 19 35
2. FC Bayern München 17 15 35
3. Hertha BSC Berlin 17 7 33
4. Hamburger SV 17 2 33
5. Bayer 04 Leverkusen 17 15 32
6. Borussia Dortmund 17 8 29
7. FC Schalke 04 17 8 27
8. Werder Bremen 17 11 26
9. Vfl Wolfsburg 17 10 26
10. Vfb Stuttgart 17 3 25
11. FC Köln 17 -6 22
12. Eintracht Frankfurt 17 -6 19
13. Hannover 96 17 -12 17
14. DSC Arminia Bielefeld 17 -12 14
15. Karlsruhe 17 -17 13
16. FC Energie Cottbus 17 -17 13
17. Vfl Bochum 17 -11 11
18. Borussia Mönchengladbach 17 -17 11

League action recommences January 30th and I for one am itching for it already.