Schalke has the right combination of youth, experience, attack and defence in their team. They celebrated their fourth home win of the season in a 3-1 success against Hoffenheim.
Last season, Leverkusen occupied the spot which Schalke currently occupies. Leverkusen escaped literally on Friday night. A second minute Michael Ballack goal set the stage for wave after wave of Freiburg attacks which somehow failed to result in an equalizer. Now we know Michael Sorg wasn’t kidding when he said that his team’s results do not match their performances.
A performance like that in the Champions League on Tuesday night might see Bayer 04 become the laughing stock of Valencia for a while. What has to be said is that Simon Rolfes was left on the bench for this one. Ballack broke his nose in the match as well. Signing Bernd Leno was a wise decision by the Bayer board- they will need him on Tuesday considering the way they played on Friday night.
Meanwhile, while plenty of drama was taking place in Stuttgart, a certain Bavarian derby was being settled in Munich. The look of the match wasn’t that of a derby- it was simply that of a match in which Bayern was playing an opponent not named Gladbach, Hoffenheim, Hanover or Napoli. In terms of average distance, fifteen teams run faster than Bayern in the Bundesliga. They ran eight kilometres less than Nuremberg.
Manuel Neuer can be sure of having more to do on Wednesday when Napoli comes to town- at-least if Holger Badstuber decides to clear in the wrong direction again. Nonetheless, to give credit where it’s due, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Franck Ribery both seem to be in the form of their lives. Schweinsteiger dominated the midfield for the 70-odd minutes he was present on the pitch. Bayern had in excess of 70% possession.
It is common sense that when you don’t have the ball, you can’t score a goal, and in Nuremberg’s case, score four goals. The more you shoot at goal, the higher probability you have of scoring unless some curse like the one that seemingly affected Mario Gomez in Vienna in 2008 affects you.
Try saying that to Köln. They had just five shots to Augsburg’s fifteen and yet beat their opponents 3-0. I guess if you have Lukas Podolski in your team, your probability of scoring is bound to increase. Podolski struck twice by the way. Podolski’s name brings up the talk one of the new kids on the block, Marco Reus.
He isn’t exactly a new kid on the block considering that he has been making a mockery out of most German defences for a while now. However, Bayern seems to be onto him and Gladbach is trying very hard to stop their star man from leaving. Bayern’s interest in this brilliant winger continues to grow with each passing day in which Arjen Robben sits on the sidelines.
Reus actually spent a portion of his youth career in Dortmund but was deemed too light-weight for the senior side of the Ruhr team. If Dortmund kicked themselves then, they must be doing the same now. They had numerous chances against Stuttgart but saw Sven Ulreich deny them time and time again especially at the end. All the same, Stuttgart’s efforts in attack and defence were rewarded with a well deserved 1-1 draw.
Will Schalke’s challenge be a long-lasting one? Bayern needed 33 matches to put the title beyond Schalke in the 2009-2010 season. Four points currently separate the sides. Schalke next travels to Hanover while Bayern in their second Bavarian derby plays Augsburg.
A performance like that in the Champions League on Tuesday night might see Bayer 04 become the laughing stock of Valencia for a while. What has to be said is that Simon Rolfes was left on the bench for this one. Ballack broke his nose in the match as well. Signing Bernd Leno was a wise decision by the Bayer board- they will need him on Tuesday considering the way they played on Friday night.
Meanwhile, while plenty of drama was taking place in Stuttgart, a certain Bavarian derby was being settled in Munich. The look of the match wasn’t that of a derby- it was simply that of a match in which Bayern was playing an opponent not named Gladbach, Hoffenheim, Hanover or Napoli. In terms of average distance, fifteen teams run faster than Bayern in the Bundesliga. They ran eight kilometres less than Nuremberg.
Manuel Neuer can be sure of having more to do on Wednesday when Napoli comes to town- at-least if Holger Badstuber decides to clear in the wrong direction again. Nonetheless, to give credit where it’s due, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Franck Ribery both seem to be in the form of their lives. Schweinsteiger dominated the midfield for the 70-odd minutes he was present on the pitch. Bayern had in excess of 70% possession.
It is common sense that when you don’t have the ball, you can’t score a goal, and in Nuremberg’s case, score four goals. The more you shoot at goal, the higher probability you have of scoring unless some curse like the one that seemingly affected Mario Gomez in Vienna in 2008 affects you.
Try saying that to Köln. They had just five shots to Augsburg’s fifteen and yet beat their opponents 3-0. I guess if you have Lukas Podolski in your team, your probability of scoring is bound to increase. Podolski struck twice by the way. Podolski’s name brings up the talk one of the new kids on the block, Marco Reus.
He isn’t exactly a new kid on the block considering that he has been making a mockery out of most German defences for a while now. However, Bayern seems to be onto him and Gladbach is trying very hard to stop their star man from leaving. Bayern’s interest in this brilliant winger continues to grow with each passing day in which Arjen Robben sits on the sidelines.
Reus actually spent a portion of his youth career in Dortmund but was deemed too light-weight for the senior side of the Ruhr team. If Dortmund kicked themselves then, they must be doing the same now. They had numerous chances against Stuttgart but saw Sven Ulreich deny them time and time again especially at the end. All the same, Stuttgart’s efforts in attack and defence were rewarded with a well deserved 1-1 draw.
Will Schalke’s challenge be a long-lasting one? Bayern needed 33 matches to put the title beyond Schalke in the 2009-2010 season. Four points currently separate the sides. Schalke next travels to Hanover while Bayern in their second Bavarian derby plays Augsburg.
