German Bundesliga Review, 11th and 12th Dec 2011

By Raghavan,

The clash of the rivals was the biggest match in terms of the expectation while Werder Bremen were the biggest in terms of authority this week. Bayern resumed with a stronger team than the one that were defeated 2-0 by Manchester City last Wednesday. Ribery, Robben and Kroos all start. Jerome Boateng and Luis Gustavo made way for Antolin Tymoschuk and Rafinha. Bayern were presented with a chance to move 3 points clear at the top after Dortmund drew with Kaiserslautern earlier. Stuttgart started without German forward Cacau with Julian Scheiber getting a start. Bayern were flying and could have capitalised early from excellent vision by Toni Kroos who picked out the flying Dutchman Arjen Robben who beat the offside trap and was through on goal. However, he tried to take it around the young Sven Ulreich instead of taking the shot himself, and served the ball on a plate for Mario Gomez to tap in, and the latter incredibly missed. Stuttgart opened the scoring when Cristian Molinaro's cross found Martin Harnik's leap. Harnik headed the ball down to the path of approaching Christian Gentner who stretched to force home the opener. Bayern set things right soon and Gomez made amends as he reached Rafinha's perfect cross that landed right on Gomez's left foot and the top scorer prodded it into the net. Things however got worse soon for Stuttgart as Molinaro received his second yellow for a late challenge on Arjen Robben. Bayern started the second half creating most of the chances with Toni Kroos in particular testing Ulreich from distance and the latter reacted well on a couple of occasions to keep Kroos's efforts out. However Kroos delivered the telling through pass to Philip Lahm who was in an advanced position, and the German left back superbly cut it back for the waiting Gomez to stretch his legs to find his and Bayern's second and match winning goal. The substitutes Pavel Pogrebnyak and Cacau were thrust in to find a second goal, but Jupp Hynckes responded by recalling the strike force of Muller,Robben and Ribery and sending in Boateng, Gustavo and David Alaba. Bayern saw through the game to clinch 3 vital points in a crowded space at the top of the league.

Second place Borussia Dortmund received a setback to their ambition of retaining the Bundesliga as they were held to a one-all draw by Kaiserslautern, a result that helped the latter just stay afloat of the drop zone. The result was a blow to Dortmund that came in the back of being knocked out of the UEFA Champions league. Robert Lewandowski came close to continue his scoring run when his heroic effort just whisked past the crossbar. But soon around 30 mins, Shinji Kagawa put Dortmund ahead from outside the box after receiving the assist from Kevin GroBkreutz. Antonio da Silva's headed effort was cleared off the line by Olcay Sahan. Sahan was the hero for Kaiserslautern as he helped his team draw level with a fantastic volley that left Roman Weidenfeller helpless. Mario Gotze who was rested in place of da Silva was brought on by Klopp, and hit the post from long range. Dortmund would have felt unlucky as this was preceded by Mats Hummels' header bounced off the post from a corner. Klopp and his team were to be disheartened later as Bayern overturned an early deficit agianst Stuttgart to pull ahead of Dortmund by 2 more points.

Hannover and Bayer Leverkusen played out a goal-less draw that still provided good entertainment and it was a hard fought and fast paced game. One just has to ask Simon Rolfes and  Manuel Pogatetz as both suffered a clash of heads which left both with an enormous bump. Rolfes had to be taken off at half time for Michael Ballack while Pogatetz, who stayed on, had blood flowing from the stitches he received earlier from the bump opening up late  in the second half. Both sides had even possession in the first half as Sidney Sam floated into the box and cut back a pass to Lars Bender who skied his shot. Andre Schurrle was presented with an opportunity to feed Eren Derdiyok but his final cross had too much distance on it. Rausch was particularly impressive in the first half but the rest of Hannover seemed to lag behind as he was left searching for support time and again. However Hannover came out at full throttle in the second half as Jan Schauldraff, Christian Schulz, Rausch and Mohammed Abdelloui threatened with every attack as Hannover dominated swathes of possession. Schauldraff in particular gave a hard time to Kadlec and  picked out Pinto with his low cross but his shot was blocked at the near post by Leno. Rausch delivered a floated cross in the area which was just a wee bit high for Abdelloui. Didier Ya Konan was brought on for Schauldraff to add some power late on, but Leverkusen managed to hold on to a point.

Werder Bremen blew apart a woefully out of sorts Wolfsburg, in a completely one sided match in which Bremen created a promising chance with every minute of play, literally. So much so that 4-1 is a score too low for the amount of chances created. Wolfsburg appeared to have been playing to an offside trap all game long, and all game long Bremen kept breaking it with utmost ease. Socratis Papasthapolous opened the scoring from a well directed free kick from Ignjovski, resulting from a foul on Bargfrede who had a very good game commanding the center of the pitch and starting many of Bremen's attacks. Claudio Pizzaro met the free kick with his head, and Benaglio could just push it into the path of the Greek philosopher. Dejagah almost lead Wolfsburg's response as his domineering run down the left and run into the box put him in a promising position. But he took too long to get his shot away and ended up firing wide in an effort to curve it around Tim Wiese. Just on the stroke of half time Bremen capitalised on a throw taken alongside the box. Pizzaro gathered the throw and ran straight across pitch alongside the goal-kick line and tricked his way past Chris before getting his shot past Benaglio into the far post. A spectacular solo. The first half also saw the miss of the Bundesliga so far this season. Rosenberg was through on goal with Trinks following up. Rosenberg left it dead center in front of an open goal for Trinks to finish but the youngster sent it flying high and wide.  Bremen continued dominating in the second half as Rosenberg got his goal from another successful negotiation of the offside trap. Rosenberg beat it and advanced towards goal, side-stepped and turned around the defender who tracked back and got his shot into the far post with a neat finish and a neat bit of skill to lose the defender. Substitute Marko Arnautovic helped himself after a cheeky back pass by Pizzaro was duly put away. Arnautovic could have had his second had he properly connected with Trinks' diagonal ball that found itself at Arnautovic's feet that stretched out too late to send the ball wide of the goal. Schafer got back a consolation that Wolfsburg really didn't deserve. The result saw Bremen move within a point of 4th placed Monchengladbach.

And speaking of Monchengladbach, the high flying underdogs suffered a 1-0 defeat at Augsburg that saw them slip to 4th after Schalke won their match. Callsen-Bracker scored the only goal of the game in the 51st minute when his free kick deflected off Raul Bobadilla and keeper ter Stegen went the other way. Bobadilla had a powering run down the middle earlier but his shot lacked quality and was kept away by Augsburg keeper Mohammed Amsif. Marco Reus did not play and this perhaps had a telling effect on the result.

In other games, Schalke moved into third with a 2-1 win at Hertha Berlin. Klaas-jan Huntelaar opened the scoring and continued his fine form in the 18th minute. Ramos pulled terms back 10 minutes later before Pukki who started in place of Julian Draxler scored the goal that sealed 3 points just before half time. Cologne were runaway winners at Freiberg with Lukas Podolski and Christian Clemens registering braces to their names. TSG Hoffenheim were handed a 2-0 win at Nurnberg by veteran Vedran Ibisevic. The result took Hoffenheim into the top half of the table. SV Hamburg and FSV Mainz played out a goal-less draw that kept the teams at 12th and 13th in the table respectively. A disappointing result for Thomas Tuchel and his men who would have expected a win at home to get their season back on track to enter the top half. 

Winners: Bayern Munich- A win at Stuttgart, a tough rival, and on the week second place dropped points; Schalke- a healthy win to move to third; Werder Bremen-complete dominance and a big win; Cologne- a big win and a jump to 10th in the table; Hoffenheim-a handsome away victory to enter the top half; Kaiserslautern- a point against the champions and an escape from the danger zone; Mario Gomez and Claudio Pizzaro- neither can stop scoring presently, and Pizzaro is doing a lot more creatively too

Losers: Borussia Dortmund- an under par performance and now have a a bigger distance between them and the leaders; Borussia Monchengladbach- seemingly created little in the absence of Marco Reus and failed to even scrape a draw vs the last placed (before the match) team; Stuttgart- a loss at home hurts whether you lose to the upcoming champions or a lower team for a team as established in the Bundesliga as Stuttgart; Hannover - in all honesty they aren't to be included in the losers for they played very well, but they will be disappointed to not get that win at home after dominating for a whole half; FSV Mainz - they have higher ambitions after a decent top half finish last season, a draw at home does them no good; Hamburg - that they drew at a recently mediocre Mainz