Brand New Bundesliga

VfL Wolfsburg 2-3 Bayer 04 Leverkusen

In 25 meetings between these two clubs there has never been a 0-0, although referee Dr. Felix Brych may have wished for one after two red cards and a penalty apiece gave both sides cause for complaint at the VW-Arena on Saturday.

The game’s turning point came in the 32nd minute, when home keeper Diego Benaglio was sent off for an ill-advised lunge outside his box that thwarted the efforts of visiting striker Erin Derdiyok. (It didn’t exactly pole-axe him, though, as the attacker seemed to imply with his sprawling actions in the event’s immediate aftermath.) That allowed the guests to establish a 3-goal lead before Derdiyok himself was on the wrong end of the referee’s red mist for a second bookable offence that helped Wolfsburg back into the contest and ensure a barnstorming finish to a riveting encounter.

Leverkusen’s 1st came when substitute stopper Andre Lenz twice parried point-blank attempts before Simon Rolfes rammed home to put his side in the ascendancy shortly before the interval. An incredibly soft penalty award endeared the good doctor to the home crowd even further in the 51st minute to allow Rolfes to plunder his 2nd from the spot, before Derdiyok was dismissed two minutes later. As Armin Veh was forced to go for broke by replacing defender Marcel Schäfer with Bosnian forward Edin Dzeko, his side were caught cold by an intricate attack from the away team that presented Stefan Kießling with an empty net in which to notch his 5th of the season with half an hour still on the clock.

With numerical parity restored, the balance of play became far more even, and the Wolves were dragged back into the contest by midfield maestro Zvjezdan Misimovic, who scored with a sumptuous set-piece after 76 minutes for his 3rd of another so far impressive campaign. Ten against ten, Dr. Brych decided to level the penalty count by giving an equally questionable spot-kick to Wolfsburg with 10 minutes to play, and Grafite who, having scored 28 Bundesliga goals last year, was enduring a 358 minute drought, knocked in his 11th penalty out of 11 in German football to make things interesting.

Bayer have managed a meagre total of seven points in their 12 visits to Wolfsburg, losing nine times, but they held on and are now the only team, other than Hamburg, to win on their last four league outings. Jupp Heynckes’ title contenders sit 2nd on goal difference, while Champions Wolfsburg now lie in 10th position.


Borussia Dortmund 1-5 FC Bayern München

80,552 fans squeezed into the Westfalenstadion to watch the two teams to have won the Bundesliga twice or more in the last 16 years on Saturday. Such is the competitive history of this rivalry that FCB have drawn against the BVB 26 times - more often than against any other team. More recently Munich have found it more easy-going, with five wins and four draws from their last 10 meetings with Dortmund, though, and there was only a brief flicker of danger that this one would end up all-square.

When a Nuri Sahin free kick was met by a Mats Hummels header on 10 minutes to put Dortmund in front there was hope. But Borussia have now scored exactly one goal in each of their last five league matches and once Mario Gomez had levelled from an offside position 10 minutes before the break the three points began to slowly slide south to Bavaria. Arjen Robben, having already struck a sublime volley on this ground this season to help Real Madrid win a friendly arranged to celebrate BVB’s centenary last month, began to run proceedings. When he was joined, from the bench, by Franck Ribery it signalled the beginning of the end for Jürgen Klopp’s Jungs.

First, Bastien Schweinsteiger beat Roman Weidenfeller at his near post, then Ribery curled a wonderful free-kick past him to formally open the floodgates. Youth product Thomas Muller entered the fray at the same time as the Frenchman and grabbed a brace to complete the rout, his second a stunning strike into the top corner from 25 yards. Bayern now loom large on the perimeter of the title race, slithering into 5th spot, while Dortmund face tough times as they have slipped to 15th with 5 points from as many matches.

TSG 1899 Hoffenheim 3-0 VfL Bochum

A Stanislav Sestak hat-trick gave Bochum a 3-0 win in this fixture last time around, but it was roles reversed on Saturday as Ralf Rangwick’s team returned to the top seven. Hoffenheim's last three home matches had ended in a draw with 1899 having notched just 2 goals in total, but Bochum have now also failed to find the net in nearly 400 minutes of football since scoring three times in the space of 12 minutes on the opening day, and they never looked like amending that record once they had gone behind to a deadly Demba Ba finish on 16 minutes. A fabulous solo-effort from wing-wizard Chinedu Obasi and Marvin Commper’s late tap-in gave the home side the points at the Rhein-Neckar Stadion to leave VfL struggling in 15th spot.

SC Freiburg 0-2 Eintracht Frankfurt

SCF’s South Korean striker Du-ri Cha faced his father Bum-Kun Cha’s former club Frankfurt, where the ex-stopper is still held in high esteem, and nearly made his mark with a long-range effort narrowly kept out by Eintracht’s Oka Nikolov on Saturday. However, despite the SC having won five of their last six home matches against the Hessians, Eintracht have an excellent record away from home this season and remain unbeaten after Alexander Meier walked the ball into the net in the last minute, following Maik Franz’s 1st for the club from close-range early in the 2nd half, to cap another accomplished performance from Michael Skibbe’s side and leave them 3rd with five games played. Freiburg have now conceded 12 times this term – more than any other side – and stay 16th after their 3rd loss so far.

1 FSV Mainz 05 2-1 Hertha BSC Berlin

The 05ers overtook the "Old Lady" of Berlin on Saturday as late goals from Andreas Ivanschitz and Aristide Bance cancelled out Maximilian Nicu’s opener for Hertha. The Berliners seemed relatively secure until suddenly succumbing to a late onslaught from their hosts and now sit stranded in 17th after Ivanschitz scored from the spot and Burkina Faso‘s Bance showed neat footwork in netting his 3rd of the campaign to undo all keeper Jaroslav Drobny’s preceding hard work in keeping him at bay up to that point. The 05ers are now unbeaten at home in their last seven league matches (five wins, two draws) and are up into 8th place on the back of this fine run, which included that epic win over Bayern Munich in week 3.

1 FC Nürnberg 1-0 Borussia Mönchengladbach

Nürnberg had failed to score in three hours and 26 minutes before this match but Peer Kluge’s prodded effort just six minutes in proved sufficient in seeing off Gladbach at the easycredit Stadion and subsequently climbing to 13th in the table. The FCN have more Bundesliga wins to their name against Gladbach (19) than against any other team and have won three of their last four meetings with the "Foals". But Michael Frontzeck’s men did have their chances, Roberto Colautti wasting a glorious opening by nodding a header over from three yards before a brilliant dummy by new number 10 Raul Marcelo Bobadilla created space inside the area, but the Argentinian assassin shot wide. They were also denied a stonewall penalty when Karim Matmour was upended in the second period, but can take heart from only conceding once, having let in 11 in their previous three away matches. They drop to 9th.

Hamburger SV 3-1 VfB Stuttgart

A delightful goal from Mladen Petric set Hamburg on their way to a vital win over Stuttgart at the HSH Nordbank Arena on Sunday, where Markus Babbel’s side suffered their 2nd loss of the season and are yet to win away thus far. The VfB have won five of their last seven meetings with Hamburger SV but they were put to the sword here by way of a well-rounded performance from the home side.

The opener from Petric was superb, the robust Croatian picking the ball up just inside the opponents’ half, outfoxing Thomas Hitzlsperger with quick feet and solid technique before exchanging passes with Dutchman Eljero Elia and unleashing an unstoppable left-footed rasper into Jens Lehmann’s top corner. You could have put 11 Lehmann’s in there – and their owners – and they still would’ve been fighting only to pick the ball out of the back of the net after half an hour. Elia then got in on the act with another smart finish just before the hour mark, Lehmann this time beaten by a low Aufsetzer (daisy-cutter) that flew into the bottom left-hand corner. Hamburg have not kept a clean sheet in any of their last 12 Bundesliga matches - the longest such run in the league, and only four minutes later Christian Träsch delivered into the path of Pavel Pogrebnyak and the Russian doubled his season’s tally with an angled finish.

But the last word went to the oldest (outfield) player on the pitch, as the evergreen Ze Roberto stepped up to make the game safe with a low drive that Lehmann gloved but could not keep out in the closing stages. Hamburg retain top spot after their fourth successive win by virtue of a marginally better goal difference than rivals Leverkusen, while Stuttgart fall to 12th, a point above the dropzone.

Werder Bremen 0-0 Hannover 96

Werder have won their last five home matches against 96 scoring 21 goals and conceding only two in the process, so it was with some surprise that the home fans greeted the final whistle that confirmed a stalemate at the Weserstadion on Sunday. The hosts went into the match on the back of two consecutive wins accompanied by separate three-goal hauls but, although Marko Marin tested replacement keeper Florian Fromlowitz from distance and Claudio Pizarro was denied twice by the stand-in stopper, Per Mertesacker’s set-piece header came closest to breaking the deadlock but was cleared off the line in the first half and as a result, Werder stand in 6th.

Jari Stajner had two opportunities to snatch an unlikely victory for Hannover but was denied by assured handling from Tim Wiese. Only once (in 21 attempts) in the history of the Bundesliga have the 96ers been able to win in the Weserstadion - Fredi Bobic scored a brace in their 2-1 win during the 2002/03 season. This hard-fought point took them to 11th.

1 FC Köln 1-2 FC Schalke 04

And so it finally came to pass that Prince Poldi found himself on the scoresheet for the very first time since his emotional homecoming. It mattered little the goals scored either side of it by the opposition. Or that the resulting reversal set the league’s longest winless streak at six. Or that the defeat left Köln rock bottom of the Bundesliga after five matches. These wer mere details. They broke the bank to get their man, and now he was paying them back. This was to be the first of many decisive interventions that would carry the Köln all the way to salvation. Schalke looked to the details for consolation.

In their last 15 matches against Köln, the Royal Blues have failed to score only once, and it took less than two minutes for an Ivan Rakitic corner to find Gerald Asamoah unmarked at the back post, who nodded the ball back across for Jefferson Farfan to beat a static defence to the loose ball and glance home a header in the 2nd minute. However, Schalke have failed to score in two successive matches for the first time since early 2008 and nerves re-surfaced when Maniche found Fabrice Ehret, who slid a ball into Lukas Podoloski, who did the rest. The German international and local pin-up ghosted past Marcelo Bordon, stretching to control with his right before burying the ball at the near post with his infamous left foot.

What may have appeared to be salvation to the home supporters resembled temporary relief to the rest, and so it turned out when Levan Kobiashvili utilized the acres of space that he was offered to deadly effect by guiding the ball into the far corner for the wnner a minute after the restart, ironically crushing any false hope of victory at the same end that it had been given to them by their Prince when the contest was just 6 minutes old. This well-earned win puts Felix Mageth’s boys into 3rd ahead of their clash with Champions Wolfsburg next Friday night.