Week 16 round-up

Claudio Pizarro: From Zero to Hero to Zero (again).

Following his stunning hat-trick last week many, including myself, had been expecting the overgrown Americana to go from strength to strength in the Bundesliga and prove that his time in SW6 was a mere blip in what will go down as one of the more notable careers in South American football history.

We were wrong.

Against Karlsruhe at the Wildpark Stadion on Saturday, almost 5 minutes flew by before the lumbering, long-haired laugh-o-meter managed to spurn the game's opening opportunity. What made it worse was that it proceeded some quite brilliant football from Bremen. Diego initially threaded the ball through the eye of a needle, Aaron Hunt intuitively spotted the Peruvian's run towards the penalty spot and Pizarro instinctively took the ball onto his weaker foot and lifted the ball over the keeper and against the foot of the far post.

After dominating the early proceedings Werder were to let the team currently in the worst form in Germany back into the game. However, having relinquished the initiative, been disrupted by injury and consequently having lost control of the game, they were presented with another monumental chance to take the lead at the start of the second half. Unfortunately for the visitors that chance fell to their ferret-faced centre-forward, who stumbled beyond two players before again finding the outside of the far upright with a low drive. Pizarro was by no means the only culprit on a bad day for the boys from Bremen, but as always, his misses were the ones which stood out.

Having surrendered the initiative in both periods, Werder then surrendered the points to a 69th minute tap-in from the infamous Stefan Buck who, unsurprisingly, claimed his first goal of the season. Then they succumbed to agitation as the ignominy of losing to the league's lowest-ranked team kicked in. Pizarro was sent off during the closing stages for flailing an arm into the face of a defender who just happened to take exception to his outrageous and desperate dive inside the area, and Diego weighed in by grabbing another player's neck for good measure. His discretion will be dealt with in due course after the referee somehow chose to ignore the offence, which happened around about 6 inches from his whistle.

If Werder, with Pizarro at the spearhead, were the architects of their own downfall, Bayern Munich and their talisman Luca Toni were the incredibly fortunate recipients of what must surely have been an act of divine intervention the previous evening. Hoffenheim played them off the park at a packed Allianz Arena to such an extent that Germany coach Joachim Löw admitted his blueprint for the future of the national team to be a replica of that laid out before the Bavarians by the new boys on Friday night.

The visitors deservedly took the lead in the second half by way of the latest chapter in Vedad Ibisevic's top-scoring textbook, this week featuring a one-two, a cushioned first touch and a composed finish from eight yards that took his total to 18 from 16 appearances and silenced the home crowd just before the hour mark. But Bayern, as they so often do, found a way back into the match. Here it came through a run and deflected effort from full-back Philipp Lahm that evened up the contest, if only for its final quarter.
Luca Toni is, for reasons unknown, a coveted goalscorer. But after wasting three golden openings he was presented with one that even he, despite doing his very best, couldn't miss. He pounced (slowly) on a loose ball that had spewed from a well-executed tackle no more than 8 yards from goal and even though his shot was weak, aimed at a comfortable height and placed mere millimetres from the goalkeeper's sternum it somehow squirmed under him and found the back of the net, which led to the imbecilic Italian foregoing his regular and ridiculous “ringing in the ears” routine and 'shooting' down his team-mates with an imaginary gun two minutes into stoppage time.

A travesty of a result means that Bayern now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Hoffenheim at the Bundesliga summit, with the noses of the boys in blue in front due to a superior goal difference.

Schalke took the points in the weekend's other big head-to-head as Hertha were belatedly put to the sword at the Veltins Arena by a 65th minute Gerald Asamoah header - his first in the league this season. Lucien Favre's side are clearly suffering a hangover from their fruitless European exploits in midweek which leave them requiring an unlikely win in Greece to progress to the UEFA Cup's knockout stages. Fans' idol Marko Pantelic was again left to stew on the bench amid rumours of interest from Premier League clubs due to his availability at a reportedly knock-down 1.5m, and his colleagues couldn't muster a goal between them on Saturday, as the Berliners dropped to fourth place in the table.

On the lower rungs of the ladder, trainer Hans Meier slashed 7 players from last week's starting line-up but it had little effect as his Borussia Mönchengladbach side were outclassed by an efficient Bayer Leverkusen outfit. The defending that saw them embarassed by fellow strugglers Energie Cottbus in week 15 was again apparent, allowing their guests the freedom to walk through their rearguard at will. It was so bad that at one point technical director Christian Ziege tried to show them how it was done from the technical area. Except that he seemed to forget he was still recovering from foot surgery and, after his solitary touch on the sidelines, grimaced in pain and hobbled back to the dugout (probably to try a new brand of face cream). Goals from Stefan Kießling, who bagged a pair, and Patrick Helmes, who notched his 12th of the current campaign, saw off the home team, even though a goal from another man who I'm sure you will be aware of, Tony Jantschke (he's not even on the squad list) sparked a brief revival that came too late in the day to have any impact on the outcome.

Gladbach may be suffering from a lack of luck lately, but the defending has been absolutely terrifying at times. If this team do not go down, I for one will be astonished, mainly by the general standards in the German top flight.

Frankfurt easily dispatched Vfl Bochum at the Commerzbank Arena after the two goalkeepers exchanged nightmares. Firstly, Bochum stopper Daniel Fernandes earned the fastest dismissal for a keeper in Bundesliga history when his kick was charged down, he upended the onrushing striker and was given his marching orders inside 5 minutes. Then, having picked a Nikos Liberopoulos penalty out of the back of the net as his first order of duty, replacement goalie Rene Renno was powerless to prevent Franfurt registering three further times without reply, including a Markus Steinhöfer free kick which swerved and swirled all the way in from the touchline, to secure a much needed 4-0 victory.

However, this only came about after the home number 1, Oka Nikolov, provided a Gomes/James moment of his own. When a routine backpass was met with one of the sloppiest first touches in recent competitive memory with the score at 1-0, the visitors may have felt in line for a reprieve. However, Bochum found the old adage to be true that when you are down at the bottom, things often don't go for you, as the clueless keeper was bailed out by one of his worried defenders and Frankfurt escaped the episode unscathed to move clear of the danger zone.

Newly installed temporary/interim/caretaker/holding the fort for anyone with a phone Stuttgart coach Markus Babbel's honeymoon is not yet officially over after his selected eleven inflicted a heavy home defeat upon Energie Cottbus on Saturday to heap added pressure on their boss, Bojan Prasniker. After winning in Mönchengladbach the previous weekend the Slovenian must have been feeling at ease once more with his position at the helm of the endangered Eastern vessel. But the sea-sickness will be back this week after a terrific Roberto Hilbert drive created a 4th minute divide between the sides which the home team never seemed capable of bridging. If the effort was wonderfully well-executed, it was the manner in which the original opportunity was presented to the midfielder that will represent the coach's biggest worry.

On the other hand, following that early debacle Stuttgart were indebted to an impressive performance from the decaying Jens Lehmann and it wasn't until Andriy Voronin look-a-like Jan Simak struck with less than half an hour to play that the away side could feel totally comfortable, Sami Khedira wrapping up the points like an early Christmas present 5 minutes later with another pin-point finish from the edge of the 18-yard box. Stuttgart are now back in the top half of the table, while Cottbus remain in the relegation zone.

Arminia Bielefeld and Borussia Dortmund played out a goalless draw which owed as much to the heroics of Bielefeld keeper Dennis Eilhoff as it did to poor end product from the two teams. Two excellent saves from the visiting keeper denied Dortmund the points, but while he tried valliantly to keep the scoreline clear his opposite number, Roman Weidenfeller, was doing his utmost to soil the sheets. First he clearly and deliberately handled a backpass but avoided punishment by claiming he had controlled it with his chest (If he had I would go as far as to say he had a bigger chest than John Terry) and at the death he bewilderingly rampaged from his line and committed himself to a ball that he had no chance of winning, in doing so allowing home full back Danny Fuchs (that's right) to lift the ball over him...and find the side netting.

On Sunday, Martin Jol hit back at his critics after a strange tactical decision had led to his Hamburg team leaving Bochum last week with only a point. A brace from the in-form Mladen Petric at the Rhein Energie Stadion rendered Milivoje Novakovic's late goal for Köln a mere consolation as Hamburg clambered up into 5th place and back into contention in the league standings. Wolfsburg also overcame Hannover at the VW Arena on Sunday but not without a scare. Having taken the lead in the 3rd minute through 'World Cup Winner' Cristian Zaccardo, the hosts saw their advantage disappear as a Konstantin Rausch cross found the bald-headed Jiri Stajner lurking (as well he might) to bury an equaliser. Unfortunately for the bald eagle his hard work was undone just 4 minutes later as his calamitous own goal gave Wolfsburg the win that took them into 6th spot and left the visitors 6th from bottom and still in trouble.

Here's the full list of results:

Bayern 2-1 Hoffenheim
Bielefeld 0-0 Dortmund
Cottbus 0-3 Stuttgart
Frankfurt 4-0 Bochum
Karlsruhe 1-0 Werder
Gladbach 1-3 Leverkusen
Schalke 1-0 Hertha
Köln 1-2 Hamburg
Wolfsburg 2-1 Hannover