Round 10

After Europe, it’s back to the Bundesliga this weekend for the start of an ‘Englische Woche’, or English week as the Germans like to call a week where they play league games Saturday/midweek/Saturday.

As the Bundesliga signed a new television deal in the summer for this season (a topic for another post), each weekend consists of 1 Friday evening game, 6 Saturday 3.30pm kick offs and 2 Sunday 5pm kick offs.

Tonight Hannover and Bochum kick off the weekend, with both teams already struggling to get away from the bottom of the table. Hannover have drawn two (Frankfurt at home and Hamburg away) and lost one (Schalke away) of their last three games, and Bochum have drawn one (Dortmund away) and lost two (Bremen and Wolfsburg, both at home) in the same time span. Hannover has already changed its manager once (the much traveled Peter Neururer sacked with Dieter Hecking, formerly of promoted Aachen replacing him) and Marcel Koller of Bochum has suffered heavy criticism from his own fans after their faltering start to the season.

On Saturday league leaders and heavy title favourites Werder Bremen play host to surprisingly high flying and newly promoted Energie Cottbus, Bayer Leverkusen are at home to slumping FSV Mainz 05, top scoring Croatian Marco Pantelic and Hertha BSC Berlin will take on the league’s only remaining unbeaten team (2 wins and 7 draws) 1FC Nürnberg in the Olympiastadion, under pressure manager Bert van Marwijk and Borussia Dortmund are at home to surging Arminia Bielefeld, Vfl Wolfsburg play this seasons huge disappointment Hamburg SV (defeated at home again in the Champions League, 1-3 vs Porto) and mixed grill Alemannia Aachen (4 wins, 5 losses and no draws) will take on Vfb Stuttgart, initially poor but now fourth and looking strong.

Sunday sees the game of the weekend, second versus third as Schalke 04 play at home to Bayern Munich. Schalke, having already been knocked out of the UEFA Cup before the group stage, were soundly thumped by Stuttgart last weekend whilst Bayern were whistled off midweek after drawing 0-0 at home to Sporting Lisbon. Whilst they sit atop their Champions League group and have already qualified for the second phase, Bayerns form in the league can best be described as patchy. Schalke have an identical record in the league (P9 W5 D1 L3) but slightly inferior goal difference. It is also a universally recognized truth that squadrons of flying pigs will be sighted over Gelsenkirchen before Schalke ever win the league again.

In the other game, Eintracht Frankfurt play Borussia Mönchengladbach in the Waldstadion. Eintracht can take heart from the 1-1 away draw to Celta Vigo last night, which they could have won, but had to play the last half hour with 10 men after Meier stupidly got himself sent off, and from the fact that Borussia are universally regarded as the worst away team in the land – their fans have started printing T-shirts with ‘Auswärtsdepp’ on them, literally ‘away idiot’ to celebrate their uselessness away from home. My fingers will be crossed that Frankfurt gain the three points necessary to start moving them back up into the top half of the table.