It was not a spectacular clash but an intriguing draw left us hungry for more and showed Leipzig are worthy title rivals“There was a lot in it but at the same time,” said Thomas Müller, “there was nothing in it.” One of Bayern’s very sharpest minds (and tongues) hit the nail on the head for the umpteenth time in a career every bit as interesting off the pitch as it has been on it. As Munich waited for a storm to brew, meteorologically as well as metaphorically, the Bundesliga’s big clash of the season to date simultaneously gave and took away, delivered and let down, satisfied and left you hungry for more.It felt as if the whole occasion had been...
The Bundesliga leaders sleepwalked to defeat and now have Bayern, Mönchengladbach and Dortmund hot on their heelsThis week Julian Nagelsmann had his players sit through a presentation on the importance of good sleep to athletic performance. Some supporters might have felt RB Leipzig had already overindulged on that score during the Bundesliga’s hibernation period, with only a couple of high impact contributions from the red-hot Timo Werner rousing them from their slumbers against Union Berlin last week to take the points that maintained a healthy lead at the top of the table.Seven days later and Leipzig were still having trouble switching on for the full duration of proceedings, although the order of service was inverted this time around. Nagelsmann’s team...
The Norwegian became the Bundesliga’s second-youngest hat-trick scorer, and the first substitute to score three timesIt felt like a regular, gentle Sunday morning in Brackel, the district to the east of the centre where Borussia Dortmund train. The reserve team trained and senior squad strikers Paco Alcácer and Erling Braut Haaland joined them, to get an extra few miles in their legs. Midfielder Julian Weigl, who recently joined Benfica, dropped in to say hello, bringing a gift of his shirt from his new club for his friend Axel Witsel, with the former now wearing the No 28 that the latter also wore in his own spell at Estádio da Luz nine years back.Just as Weigl had gone from tempest to...
More than 40 years since Borussia Mönchengladbach were champions, rising hopes for them are a boost for the BundesligaThis, the more gnarled of Bundesliga followers would tell you, is the real Klassiker. Years of mere intermittent threats to Bayern Munich’s dominance have made Borussia Dortmund, Germany’s most visible other club and the champions’ most frequent irritants, the default opposition for a showpiece. More than 40 years have passed since Borussia Mönchengladbach were champions for a fifth and as yet final time, an era in which the mantle of top dogs was a real back-and-forth. In the 1970s, Gladbach’s first two titles and last three were split by a Bayern run of three in succession.It may be way too early to...
Lucien Favre had said his side had nothing to lose, but lose they did – their six successive Bundesliga defeat at the Allianz ArenaEvery team has their blind spot, their house of horror, where they can’t put a foot right. On the weekend of Der Klassiker we were emphatically reminded that Borussia Dortmund’s bad place is against ostensibly their biggest domestic rivals.“In Munich,” wrote the ESPN journalist Stephan Uersfeld, “Dortmund are the new Hamburg.” Related: Bayern Munich crush Dortmund thanks to Robert Lewandowski double Related: Frankfurt’s captain sent off for knocking over Freiburg coach, sparking chaos Continue reading...