Like his new club, the Germany wing-back has taken a hard road to the top and both can sense a big opportunity this season“I’m knackered,” Robin Gosens told Sky. “But very, very happy.” What started out looking like the most forgiving, gentle induction into life together for him and Union Berlin didn’t turn out quite like that. It was something far more satisfying instead.Gosens had waited a long time for this, his full Bundesliga debut, just like Union have spent a long while working themselves into this position. No longer the underdog but the ogre, they ruthlessly crushed the hopes of Darmstadt in the promoted club’s first game at their Böllenfalltor home since arriving back in the big time. Union...
They may have won 11 straight Bundesliga titles but all has not been well in Bavaria where the scrutiny is always intenseAll of a sudden none of it matters. Not a frustrating summer in the transfer market, with the lack of a sporting director often apparent. Not missing out on Declan Rice. Not even the uncertainty over the goalkeeping position. Harry Kane’s impending arrival at the Allianz Arena is a moment of triumph for Bayern Munich, and they are right to celebrate it.How badly Bayern have needed this, on so many levels. Not necessarily on a statistical one – the team scored 92 Bundesliga goals last season, compared with 97 in 2021-22, a negligible difference in light of the exit...
As Dortmund close on the Bundesliga title, it is Leipzig’s first win at Bayern that will continue to resonateOne of German football’s primary clichés is that of Bayern-Dusel – an undeserved helping of fortune that would help them somehow get it over the line in the last knockings, however well or badly they had played. A sense of inevitability. If you make your own luck in this game, though, Bayern Munich have not made nearly a good enough job of manufacturing any for themselves in recent weeks.For the champions, licking their wounds after Saturday evening’s stark, humbling home loss at the hands of RB Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund’s Sunday teatime victory at Augsburg was almost irrelevant, even if it did mark...
Amid financial worries and unrest behind the scenes, another capitulation on the pitch has left Hertha on the brink“Maybe it was my mistake,” pondered Pal Dardai, the Hertha coach, “that we were too busy working on the offensive side [of the game] during the week. Because defensively, there was nothing at all.”Dardai, a club legend, is too hard on himself. Nobody blames him, parachuted in during the last knockings of this shambolic season as a hopeful punt, as was evidenced by the standing ovation he received from members when taking the stage at Sunday morning’s club AGM. Continue reading...
Two of the Bundesliga’s biggest clubs are staring relegation in the face once more but have given themselves fighting chances“On a day like today,” exhaled Stuttgart coach Sebastian Hoeness, “I told the boys they should go out to eat tonight, and they can have a beer as well. It’s part of letting your emotions out.” It was that kind of weekend at the bottom of the table, both for the Swabians and for Schalke, two huge clubs who have spent most of this campaign looking over their shoulders and not seeing much behind them – but two teams who, after this weekend, are very much alive and kicking.When the Bundesliga coins its marketing strapline “football as it’s meant to be”...