With Robert Lewandowski eyeing the exit and the pain of Villarreal still smarting, the title celebrations were mutedIt had all the hallmarks of a title celebration. The freshly-minted commemorative T-shirts, the streams of flying beer, the full stadium (for the first time in an Allianz Arena edition of this fixture for two-and-a-half years), beating opponents of name to finish the job and the rest.This was historic, as Bayern Munich secured a 10th successive Bundesliga title. Yet it felt strangely empty, a sensation that couldn’t wholly be put down either to the recent dumping out of the Champions League or just plain old overfamiliarity. Continue reading...
BVB’s first sold-out home game in more than two years should have lifted the team – but RB Leipzig spoiled the partyAs Covid restrictions begin to ease at last, Borussia Dortmund’s first home sell-out in more than two years was a sight to behold. It was something that RB Leipzig’s Domenico Tedesco was keen to pre-warn his young side about – although as he later pointed out in an ESPN interview, it was something the home players were not used to experiencing recently either.The bitter disappointment for most of those in Westfalen on Saturday evening was that while the colour returned to the stands, it was the same old, same old on the pitch. Leipzig coasted to a 4-1 victory...
Mark Fotheringham steered Hertha Berlin out of the bottom two with the club’s Covid-hit manager confined to a hotel roomIt felt as if the appointment of Felix Magath was peak Hertha. We should have known better. On the eve of the first game of the new era, at home to Champions League-chasing Hoffenheim, the new coach tested positive for Covid, and was confined to his Berlin hotel room. When it became known that Magath would be unable to take to the touchline for his projected debut with illness, it felt utterly typical of Hertha’s wretched season to date. “I thought he was joking,” said sporting director Fredi Bobic of the moment when he took Magath’s call to receive the news.Those...
An overcommitment to attack and a lack of organisation has led to the champions slipping up at a vital stage of the seasonThis could have been Tuesday night all over again. So much of Bayern Munich’s play dazzled a sold-out PreZero Arena, and the champions could easily have done to Hoffenheim what they had done to Red Bull Salzburg four days previously. Maybe the difference between the two games was just “a little bit of luck,” as Thomas Müller said it was.There was certainly little sense of anguish or regret. Julian Nagelsmann may have the luxury of being able to look at the process knowing that the results will likely follow, but he was satisfied with his team’s performance. Bayern...
We are in for a layered and intense relegation battle – with Stuttgart, Hertha and Gladbach all in serious trouble This was meant to be the second-tier season to beat them all in Germany, and not just in a domestic context. Schalke and Werder Bremen filling the relegation places in May 2021 meant they joined Hamburg, Hannover, Fortuna Düsseldorf and Nürnberg in Bundesliga 2, before we even get to names such as St Pauli and Dynamo Dresden. This weekend, Werder won a five-goal thriller at Hamburg in the Nordderby to stay top of the table.After a turbulent season which has included the departure of coach Markus Anfang after a federal investigation into him faking a vaccination certificate (for which he...