The Bundesliga circus has rolled into town
Bayern crisis? A traitor and fan censorship? A title race
It’s been a while again. Life is very busy and it will continue to be for the next while, so watching football closely is hard and having the time to write about it is harder still.
The planned weekly newsletter will continue to not be that until probably leading up to and then after the World Cup. For now, enjoy a few mentions of a few of the bigger stories of a mental weekend.
Thanks for sticking around anyway and you will be rewarded for your patience. At least I hope you see it that way …
The Oktoberfest curse
Unless you are of a Bayern Munich persuasion, no Bundesliga tradition is finer than the champions having a bad result before they are obliged to attend the first Oktoberfest weekend with glum faces.
Wahey!
Bayern may be four games without a win but they will be fine. They’ve beaten Inter and Barcelona in that time and nobody has really taken full advantage to build an insurmountable lead. Dortmund are only three points clear and the two sides have just one more Bundesliga game before they face each other. What are the odds Bayern are back above their closest direct rivals by the time that game is over?
The Mother of all Teenagers
No, that sounds wrong. But the “mother of all derbies” was won by 17-year-old Youssoufa Moukoko on Saturday and his reaction to scoring the winner will surely go down as an iconic image.
It was great to have this game back in front of fans after such a long time, the Westfalenstadion was electric, Schalke put up a great fight, and Dortmund continued to not be wholly convincing even if the returns of Donyell Malen and Karim Adeyemi provide something different.
Schalke, like Bochum, look like they have a long fight to survive ahead of them.
Mad Max, Schiri censorship, brilliant Borussia
“What bothers me about (RB Leipzig) is this shifting of players from Salzburg to Leipzig and from Leipzig to Salzburg. That leaves me with a bad taste because they essentially have two squads.”
“Leipzig don’t seem to need to generate any money. Just look at their losses in the transfer market over the past four years: they’re spent around €150m on players and brought almost nothing in.”
Max Eberl was the sporting director at Borussia Mönchengladbach when he said those things. Now he has taken up at similar position at … Leipzig and Gladbach fans had some opinions.
“Months of negotiating with a construct without a soul, Max Eberl the loss of your senses makes us sick,” read one banner as the clubs met on Saturday.
A second said: “A son of a bitch club only employs sons of bitches.”
That one was take down after referee Patrick Ittrich, with no instruction from his superiors, threatened to take the players off the pitch. Where is the line for refs’ powers and fan censorship after that? A very worrying day for German fans.
On the pitch, Gladbach brushed aside the biggest club funded by an Energy Drink company as Daniel Farke’s brilliant start in charge continued. Gladbach may be down in sixth but they are playing exciting football and recent dropped points have come against formidable sides in Bayern and SC Freiburg.
Top of the tree
Apropos brilliant starts, what about Union Berlin?
The only unbeaten team in the league, the team top of the league, the team with the best defensive record.
Every summer they lose key players but they replace them brilliantly and have others step up.
By my reckoning the 2-0 win over Wolfsburg was their most dominant performance of the season so far. Yes they beat Schalke 6-1 but they had fewer shots that day, scoring from six of seven on target. On Sunday they managed 16 shots and conceded just five. This was comprehensive and even against an abject Wolfsburg it was hard not to be impressed.
The front two of target man-slash-poacher Jordan Pefok (who somehow isn’t in the USA squad?) and rapid and willing runner Sheraldo Becker (who leads the league for goals (six) and direct goal contributions (ten), already matching last season’s numbers) looks like a perfect match and a handful for any defence., while Union themselves boast the league’s least generous defence and midfield with their incredible physicality and an organised, no-nonsense approach.
Sunday also saw a first start of the season for Timo Baumgartl, returning from his battle with testicular cancer. Get yourselves checked!
To what extent Union can keep going remains to be seen but others don’t look half as good, even if you can bet on them struggling to keep up their current efficiency in front of goal. I am sorry to be a killjoy, but scoring with 17% of your shots while creating the worst opportunities in the league (0.05 xG per shot, as per StatsBomb) is not a recipe for a shock title challenge. It might, in an inconsistent year for others, be enough to squeak over the line for top four if they keep their opponents incredibly quiet.
Short-ish and sweet-ish. I’ll try to get another thing out over the international break — if you follow me on Twitter there will be something on the title race for Opta this week — and then more analytical stuff to resume around November.
Thanks again for subscribing and, hey, anyone else you send this way to do the same will continue to give me an extra nudge to get back into a proper rhythm again as soon as I can.
Until next time!