Category Archives: 2020/21 Season

Matchday 28

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Featured Game – Stuttgart 2-3 Borussia Dortmund

After a humiliating 5-1 defeat in their own back yard in the reverse fixture, Borussia Dortmund sought revenge against newly promoted Stuttgart. The hosts however have been far from the relegation battle this season and may have even exceeded the expectations of their American coach Pellegrino Matarazzo, as they fight to get into the European places in their first campaign back in the Bundesliga. The victory at the Signal Iduna Park in December epitomised Stuttgart’s play as their fast counterattacking football blew away a disjointed home defence. Therefore, there was every chance that they could close the gap to their visitors in the table from four points to just one. This was just a week after Dortmund failed to reduce the deficit to Eintracht Frankfurt in the race for the Champions League, but now their focus had to switch to preserving their current position in a Europa League spot. It all seemed a bit underwhelming for such a great club, whose real ambition is to be fighting for the title.

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Matchday 27

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Featured Game – RB Leipzig 0-1 Bayern München

The hotly anticipated Bundesliga Topspiel for Matchday 27 had huge implications in the title race. Ultimately, the Bayern victory sees them move into a seemingly comfortable lead now at the top of the table, however a win for Leipzig would have made for a very entertaining end to the season, as the gap between the sides would have been reduced to a solitary point with just seven games to play. The weighty stakes of the contest were all too apparent from the sides’ performances however, and the game was a slow and tense affair.

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Matchday 26

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Featured Game – Eintracht Frankfurt 5-2 Union Berlin

The common cliché in football is that the game is a game of two halves. However, sometimes a game can feel like there was only one half. This was one of those occasions. Nearly all the action took place in the first 45 minutes, with six of the eventual seven goals already scored by the break – the most this Bundesliga season so far. After drawing away in Leipzig last weekend, Eintracht would have wanted to return to winning ways, but facing an unpredictable Union is never easy. The club, only promoted to the top-flight for the first time last campaign, have not experienced the second season syndrome that has seen so many teams crash back down due to a false sense of security built up by a successful first. Therefore, the half time score line would have come as something of a welcome surprise for Eintracht, however not without a series of trials and tribulations beforehand.

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Matchday 25

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Featured Game – Bayer Leverkusen 1-2 Arminia Bielefeld

When you are a prestigious German football team with a history of top players and high ambitions for the season, a defeat at home to a newly promoted side struggling at the wrong end of the table would often come as a shock. However, for Champions League-chasing Bayer Leverkusen the loss was one the likes of which have been seen all too regularly this campaign. Their wastefulness in front of goal is the key feature of many of their poor performances which have left them with only four wins from their last seventeen matches in all competitions. This inconsistent run has also seen the Werkself bow out of both the DFB-Pokal to fourth-tier side Rot-Weiss Essen and the Europa League against Swiss outfit Young Boys – a tie in which they lost both legs. Therefore, a run of three games in which they would face three of the bottom four would have been welcomed with open arms by Peter Bosz, however the first of those against Arminia Bielefeld did not go to plan.

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Matchday 24

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Featured Game – Bayern München 4-2 Borussia Dortmund

The whole world was watching as Matchday 24 served up the second edition of Der Klassiker this season. There was so much on the line as the battles for top spot and the Champions league places would both take exciting new turns as this game was played out. It certainly is not uncommon for a clash between these two giants of German football to have a lot riding on it, usually in trying to split them at the top of the league, with Bayern coming out on top more often than not. However, it was Leipzig that would have benefited most from a Dortmund win, as this would have kept the Red Bulls in first place after they beat Freiburg earlier that afternoon. Despite the eventual score line highlighting the fast-paced contest that it was, with chances a plenty, on face value it could have been easy to assume that Dortmund put up more of a fight than they perhaps have in previous recent encounters with Bayern. In the end, it was the home side who dominated the game in both possession and, drastically, in the shots tally at the end of proceedings as their 27 massively surpassed their opponents’ mere four attempts at goal. Nevertheless, when you have potentially the world’s most promising young attacker in your line-up, as Dortmund do in Erling Haaland, your few offensive efforts can still be converted into goals and this was demonstrated in the game’s opening ten minutes.

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Matchday 23

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Featured Game – RB Leipzig 3-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach

Saturday’s Topspiel served up an absolute cracker with goals and drama galore! There was so much riding on the game for both sides and this is ostensibly what caused the match to go the way it did – Leipzig had such pressure on them to keep up their title challenge with a win at home, especially after seeing Bayern thrash Köln earlier in the day, but for ‘Gladbach the task was simply to try and keep themselves in with a shout of reaching the European spots at the end of the campaign. Arguably, it is Leipzig’s task that appears the more challenging and this may have been the reason for their nervous start to the game and questionable defending for both of their opponents’ goals.

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Matchday 22

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Featured Game – Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 Bayern München

When it looked like the Bundesliga title race was only going one way this season back in December before the winter break, now due to some erratic Bayern form and some much-needed consistency from Leipzig, the prospect of an eight successive championship is no longer just within touching distance for the Rekordmeister. After a surprise draw at home to Arminia Bielefeld last week, and with the gap between first and second in the table being just five points, the pressure was certainly piled on München to react in this game. The question was just how would they approach the contest?

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Matchday 21

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Featured Game – Borussia Dortmund 2-2 Hoffenheim

Matchday 21 saw a record-equalling seven draws played out, so it only seems right that we start with one of the most thrilling equal games. I mentioned in the predictions section of last week’s report that this tie could serve up goals, as both sides’ defences are certainly looking feeble at the moment. Add into the mix one of the most exciting young attacks in world football that Dortmund possesses, along with a Hoffenheim front line that has the potential to produce as well. However, the yellow and blacks will be thankful that this was only a potential and not a sure-fire goal-scoring-machine like some of the sides further up the table than Hoffenheim.

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Matchday 20

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Featured Game – Hertha Berlin 0-1 Bayern München

The Friday night game saw Hertha host the champions Bayern at the Olympiastadion. Although no fans have been allowed into stadiums this season, it is doubtful whether many of the capital side’s supporters would pay the ticket fee to watch the disjointed football that their club has been stringing together in the past months. After this loss, they are left just a place above the relegation play-off place in the league table, with Arminia in 16th only trailing to them on goal difference and with a game in hand. Although the team’s position is more than precarious, Hertha boss Pal Dardai would probably have walked away from the encounter with Bayern with many positives.

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