So after highly successful days of European games, the last week of Bundesliga starts today. All 6 German teams made it through the group stages; Bayern, Dortmund, Gladbach finishing top of their group, Schalke, Leverkusen and Wolfsburg finishing second. We're the only league with 4 teams in the CL knockout stages and at the moment would surpass the Premier League in the UEFA 5 year ranking that starts next season. With a bit of luck in the draw on Monday, we might actually pull it off that we can finish the season as strongly as we started it and start the 2015/16 season being placed 2nd only behind Spain.
Back to the Bundesliga, 3 more games from today to next Sunday for all teams and still a lot of potential for drama before we go into the winterbreak. Most clubs give their players 2 weeks off over christmas and new year's eve and start with a trainingscamp in the first week of January. The league returns on Friday, January 30th, with what looks likely to be the game between the top 2 teams: Wolfsburg - Bayern. I'll try to give a short review/predicition about all the teams with the view on the remaining games in 2014.
The league table right now:
Code:
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
1 Bayern Munich 14 11 3 0 33 3 +30 36
2 VfL Wolfsburg 14 9 2 3 28 13 +15 29
3 FC Augsburg 14 8 0 6 20 14 +6 24
4 Bayer Leverkusen 14 6 5 3 25 18 +7 23
4 Schalke 04 14 7 2 5 25 18 +7 23
6 Borussia Mönchengladbach 14 6 5 3 19 12 +7 23
7 Eintracht Frankfurt 14 6 3 5 27 26 + 1 21
8 1899 Hoffenheim 14 5 5 4 21 22 −1 20
9 Hannover 96 14 6 1 7 14 21 −7 19
10 SC Paderborn 07 14 4 5 5 19 23 −4 17
11 FSV Mainz 05 14 3 7 4 17 20 −3 16
12 1. FC Köln 14 4 3 7 14 20 −6 15
13 Hamburger SV 14 4 3 7 9 18 −9 15
14 Borussia Dortmund 14 4 2 8 15 21 −6 14
15 Hertha BSC 14 4 2 8 19 26 −7 14
16 SC Freiburg 14 2 7 5 15 21 −6 13
17 Werder Bremen 14 3 4 7 20 31 −11 13
18 VfB Stuttgart 14 3 3 8 18 31 −13 12
Bayern again with a highly impressive season so far. Interesting enough, while most people would probably agree that Guardiola improved the team from last season, we already can't match our record breaking first half of last season. After 17 games last season, we had 15 wins and 2 draws. We played fantastic football last season around the same time with the beautiful 4141, but injuries and a drop in form from March onwards hurt us, so the big question is: Can we maintain our form throughout the whole year this time?
Wolfsburg made an obvious step forward, but I'm still not convinced that they're as good as their league position suggests. They're also highly dependent on 1 player, more than any other team. If De Bruyne gets injured, they'll fecked. Home games against Paderborn and Cologne should see them going into the winterbreak in 2nd place, inbetween the away game at Dortmund could determine how strong they actually are.
Augsburg are obviously the huge surprise this season, but their remaining 3 games are Bayern (h), Hannover (a) and Gladbach (h). They really have to get results in those games or most likely they'll drop down to 7th or 8th place
Leverkusen, Schalke & Gladbach are so far their usual selves, inconsistent, a mix between great games and feck-ups or in Gladbach's case, a bad run inbetween that cost them a better position. But they did what was expected of them in Europe and managed to stay in contact with the top four, so everything is possible. On Sunday Leverkusen play Gladbach at home, definitely the most interesting game involving those 3 teams in the upcoming 10 days
Frankfurt, Hoffenheim, Hannover, Paderborn, Mainz and Cologne The first three look like solid midtable clubs, the latter three looked like overperforming sides so far. I don't think either of them will challenge for a Europa league spot and with the small gap to the relegation zone, I'd say all of them could still get into trouble, but especially Paderborn, Mainz and Cologne should look down rather than up.
Hamburg simply have too much quality in the squad to get relegated, but they need to find a bit more consistency to make sure that they won't get into trouble. Hamburg made many changes that could see them finally making a positive development from here on. Their next two games are in Freiburg and against Stuttgart, huge games for them to open a gap to the relegation zone and finally bringing some stability into the club to build on over the winter.
Dortmund still confuse the hell out of me. It looks like Klopp put the focus on defensive stability and that seems to be the right decision. Hertha (a), Wolfsburg (h), Bremen (a) are interesting final three games. Everything is possible, from 7 or 9 points and closing the gap to the top four to feck ups against Hertha and Bremen, which could mean they'll stay deep in the relegation fight. So far the goalkeeper decision seems to work, but a bad game from Langerak could turn it into huge drama, so it should be interesting to follow Dortmund this week for many reasons.
Hertha & Freiburg are somewhat weird teams. I usually like how they play football, but both lack individual quality and they had some awful spells so far this season. Freiburg is probably the unluckiest team in the league this season when it comes to referee decisions, but they caught a bit of a break in recent games. Both have rather difficult games coming up and there's not much of a chance that they'll improve on their position before the winterbreak. Freiburg need to get a result at home against Hamburg tomorrow before they travel to Munich midweek if they want to improve.
Bremen & Stuttgart have actually managed to take over from Hamburg as the worst managed Bundesliga clubs, which certainly wasn't easy to pull off. Both already changed their manager this year, but so far it doesn't look like it's paying off. There's some talent somewhere in the squads of those teams, but overall I'm not sure if it's enough for both to stay up. Both clubs are still struggling with debt through investing in stadium renovation and expected to keep staying in the top half of the league with a regular chance of European football. It's unlikely that they recover anytime soon with the financial situation they're in, which is a shame, after all they are 2 of the 5 different clubs who won the Bundesliga in the last decade. Even if they avoid relegation this season, they won't do anything great in the near future.
The upcoming games this weekend, times in GMT:
Today
19:30 Hoffenheim - Eintracht Frankfurt
Saturday
14:30 Augsburg - Bayern Munich
14:30 Freiburg - Hamburger SV
14:30 Hertha Berlin - Borussia Dortmund
14:30 Schalke 04 - FC Cologne
14:30 Werder Bremen - Hannover 96
17:30 Mainz 05 - VfB Stuttgart
Sunday
14:30 Bayer Leverkusen - Borussia Moenchengladbach
16:30 Wolfsburg - Paderborn
