Captain has come of age since returning from knee injury and proved his worth again with a vital winner against Gladbach
The final goal scored in front of Borussia Dortmund’s “yellow wall” in 2018 was a vital and a fitting one. When Marco Reus slid in at the back post to knock in the winner against Borussia Mönchengladbach, it gave his team some valuable peace of mind at the end of a year that has finally given some to him.
It all came together quite beautifully on Friday night. With the visitors occupying second place and having closed the gap at the top to six points with their midweek victory over Nürnberg and BVB’s loss at lowly Fortuna Düsseldorf, the pressure was on even more than had been anticipated. Dortmund knocked on the door fairly insistently from the off, but it was the sudden withdrawal of their top scorer, Paco Alcácer, with a muscle injury just after the half-hour mark that really kickstarted things.
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Bayern have made it clear this week, however, that they won’t be throwing in the towel. “We’re back,” said Niko Kovac, who returned to Eintracht Frankfurt and saw his team win 3-0, the excellent Franck Ribéry leading the way with a brace. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was full of praise for the Frenchman, though did not go as far as pledging a new contract – but the 35-year-old admitted with a grin he did ask in the dressing-room afterwards.
It has been a good year for Eintracht though, as shown by the sporting director, Fredi Bobic – described as “unpretentious, open, confident, clear, opinionated and purposeful” by Jogi Löw – being named as Kicker magazine’s man of the year.
We suggested in on Thursday that two wins in the year’s final two games might not be enough to save Heiko Herrlich’s job and that proved to be the case, with Bayer Leverkusen announcing on Sunday morning – after a 3-1 win over Hertha – that he will be replaced by Peter Bosz in January. Some will scoff after the Dutchman’s difficulties at Dortmund but his brand of front-foot football could be tailor-made for the current Leverkusen squad.
The bottom two for Christmas are Nürnberg and Hannover, who both suffered 1-0 home defeats while Stuttgart occupy the play-off place having gone down 3-1 to Schalke, whose opening half-season was hobbled by a shortage of firepower – so Domenico Tedesco was delighted to see 18-year-old Ahmed Kutucu come on to bag a maiden goal.
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