Squeaky Bum Bundesliga (Week 33)

After the drama of “English Week” (1 in which midweek fixtures take place) Saturday’s matches went a long way towards deciding both the outcome of the Championship race and the order of relegation places in Germany with 1 round still to negotiate. While 4 teams remain mathematically capable of claiming the 1st Division crown, there is now a clear front-runner. At the other end only a statistical nightmare can drag those above the drop zone back into trouble but there is still everything to play for regarding the chance for redemption through the newly re-introduced relegation play-offs.

TSG 1899 Hoffenheim 2 – 2 FC Bayern München (30,150)

A scintillating 1st half saw all 4 of the afternoon’s goals scored and left Bayern in the daunting position of facing a trip to rivals Vfb Stuttgart next weekend knowing that if all goes well they could be Champions and if all else fails they can end up 4th. Hosts Hofffenheim were highly charged at the Rhein-Neckar Arena on Saturday, the ill-tempered reverse fixture having culminated in an ill-deserved point for the Bavarians in December to temporarily deny Hoffenheim the Winter Championship. Hoffenheim are now 7th but remain motivated under coach Ralf Rangwick and after going behind to a goal from the superb Franck Ribery on 16 minutes they clawed their way back into the contest firstly through Demba Ba’s 13th of the season and then Carlos Eduardo’s 28th minute effort to complete the turnaround. However, hearts were to be broken once again as Ribery teased a ball onto the head of Luca Toni, who equalised on the stroke of half-time.

Hannover 96 0 – 5 Vfl Wolfsburg (49,000)

The scoreline should really have read Grafite 2 Edin Dzeko 3 at the AWD-Arena as Wolfsburg’s frontline tore apart their hosts’ defence from 1st minute to last on Saturday. Records remain in freefall at the feet of the Wolves this season and the goalscoring feats of their front 2 represent the 1st time in Bundesliga history that 2 players from the same club have totaled more than 20 goals over a league campaign.
Grafite’s 25th and 26th of the season were both brought about by shoddy defending but were met with identically ice-cold finishes and while a pair of free headers were clinically dispatched by Dzeko in much the same fashion it was his 1st that was the most eye-catching, as he chested a whipped cross and executed a half-volley on the swivel that was in from the moment it had left the laces of his boot. He now has 25 to his name, an incredible 18 of them having come in the 2nd half of the season.
Wolfsburg’s biggest ever away win was witnessed by 8,000 travelling fans and leaves them on the brink of their 1st ever league title, requiring only a draw at home to Werder Bremen next Saturday to clinch the coveted shield. Their opponents may have other priorities as they will play cup finals either side of their game at the VW-Arena, although ironically Werder are the only side to have won in Wolfsburg this season, destroying Felix Magath’s team 5-2 in the DFB-Cup late last year.

Vfb Stuttgart 2 – 0 FC Energie Cottbus (55,500)

The last game at the Mercedes Benz Arena in its current format, before it undergoes wholesale changes in the summer, saw home skipper Thomas Hitzlsperger give his team the lead with just under 20 minutes on the clock before the injured Mario Gomez came off the bench to set up strike partner Cacau for the decisive second with 12 minutes to play and claim a well-earned 2-0 win over Cottbus, all but securing their opponents’ fate in the bottom 3. Had Jiayi Shao not hit the bar from the attack directly preceeding the second goal then the visitors may have snatched a dramatic draw but, as it stands, they can only hope for a place in the relegation play-offs after succumbing to a sucker-punch on Saturday. Stuttgart go into their final game at the Allianz Arena knowing that a win and a Wolfsburg slip-up could still hand them the title and enable them to present Markus Babbel as the leading candidate for Manager of the Year, having taken over in December with his side in 11th.

Hertha BSC 0 – 0 FC Schalke 04 (74,244)

For those unfamiliar with the concept of a “Stadion-Runde” (Stadium Round) it occurs when a player buys a beer for 74,000 people after losing a bet. Pal Dardai was the generous sole who paid for 55,000 litres of beer to be delivered as free alcohol was consumed and replica shirts dished out to 1 whole stand at the Olympiastadion on Saturday. The sell-out crowd would have been disappointed by the result, 1 which sees their side fall off the pace in their hunt for the title, all but ending their hopes of silverware for another year, but not by the performance. Hertha were attractive to watch, free-flowing and seemingly walking through the Schalke ranks at will in the 1st period. However, they could not break through despite their domination, deliverer Dardai cruelly wasting their clearest opportunity, and they must now win in Karlsruhe on the last day and hope that Bayern and Stuttgart draw in order to claim 2nd spot and thus an automatic Champions League berth.

Borussia Dortmund 6 – 0 DSC Arminia Bielefeld (80,200)

Dortmund have been ably supported this year by an average attendance of over 74,000 and yet another sell-out was richly rewarded with their biggest win in 13 years on Saturday. Opponents Bielefeld had missed a hatful of chances early on and were much the better side but once home skipper Sebastien Kehl had nicked in ahead of the onrushing Dennis Eilhoff to score the first of his 2 goals a minute before the break Arminia completely capitulated in the second period to almost certainly miss out on automatic survival come next weekend. They will aim to avoid another thrashing of this magnitude against Hannover on Saturday and retain their play-off place after additional goals from Tamas Hajnal, Nelson Valdez, Tinga and the pick of the bunch from substitute Mohamed Zidan condemned them to an embarrassing reversal at Signal Iduna Park. Dortmund are dreaming of Europe following another all-star display of attacking prowess from Jürgen Klopp’s men.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen 5 – 0 Borussia Mönchengladbach (43,000)

Only a minor miracle can thwart Gladbach’s bid for safety next Saturday but by losing heavily in Dusseldorf last Saturday they went some way towards proving this eventuality could be less implausible than at first glance of the table. Bayer had claimed only 4 points from their 7 previous encounters at their temporary home but Stefan Kießling, Patrick Helmes, Gonzalo Castro, Michal Kadlec and a Dante Bonfim own goal all troubled the scorers against Gladbach to render this particular record a farce. Excitable away fans uprooted entire rows of seats in order to make more room for standing at their end as their raucousness was replaced with an ever-increasing air of dismay as each goal put their top-flight status further back into jeopardy, after back-to-back last minute winners in their 2 previous matches had seen them pull away from the danger area.

Vfl Bochum 2 – 0 Eintracht Frankfurt (30,420)

Officials have dished out a combined total of 146 yellow cards to these two sides this season and with death threats having been sent to Bochum players by their own fans prior to Saturday’s contest this promised to be a tense occasion all round. But Bochum shrugged off any sense of pressure to secure a position of safety with a comfortable win by a margin which could have been wider had it not been for visiting keeper Markus Proll who had an awesome day between the sticks despite conceding from Vahid Hashamian in the 1st half and the sorely missed Diego Klimowicz in the 2nd, ensuring “Jo-Jo Bochum” remain recoiled at the top end of their spectrum for another year.

SV Werder Bremen 1 – 3 Karlsruher SC (39,219)

The departure of arguably the league’s greatest player to Juventus this summer will undoubtedly be mourned by many, nowhere more so than in Bremen, where Diego made his final appearance at the Weserstadion against bottom club Karlsruher on Saturday. He failed to finish on a high despite delighting the crowd with some classic trickery in the 1st half, as his side somehow slumped to a heavy defeat at the hands of the league’s lowest ranked team. They were 2 down at half-time to a side who had scored just 21 goals all season and had not scored 3 times away in 11 years, and their number 1 Tim Wiese, “der Elfmeter-Töter” (the penalty-killer), had also turned away a spot-kick before Lars Stindl struck twice to double his tally for the season. Alexander Iashvili added another 10 minutes after the restart and Hugo Almeida pulled 1 back for the hosts but it all proved irrelevant to Karlsruher’s hopes of surviving without the need for a play-off, as news came in of the result from Bochum and the team who have been bottom for much of the season must now hope for a major turn-up at home to Hertha Berlin next week just to make the match against the 3rd best team in the Second Division.

HSV Hamburg 0 – 1 1. FC Köln (57,000)

Flowers were offered to Ivica Olic to mark his last appearance at the HSH Nordbank Arena to add to “Alles Gute” wishes from the fans in anticipation of his long-awaited move south to Bayern Munich next month. His sons should fit in seamlessly as they are remarkably named Luca and Toni, their father looking set to partner the infamously infantile Italian next term. Unfortunately his team-mates failed to give him a fitting send-off as their season continued to peter out by falling to Fabrice Ehret’s 3rd goal of the season for Köln in the 9th minute on Saturday.