The Bundesliga - Week 21
Posted by Pete in Bundesliga | 14 February 2006
It's been an mixed weekend in the Bundesliga. You-know-who managed an unconvincing win over fourth-from-bottom Nuremberg, but Bremen's surprise home defeat to relegation candidates Kaiserslautern means that the champions' lead is extended to 10 points. To add further to Bremen's woes, their goalkeeper Reinke suffered a badly fractured skull during last week's game with Stuttgart. While he thankfully hasn't sustained any lasting injuries, he'll be out for a good 3 to 4 weeks and will miss at least one of the games against Juve.
Elsewhere, with Giovanni Trapattoni gone, Stuttgart were looking to a fresh start having only scored 21 goals in 20 goals. Quite where they found new manager Armin Veh has baffled many, as he has no Bundesliga experience to speak of. He carried on where Giovanni Trapattoni left off too, with yet another drab loss. Not ideal prepration for their UEFA Cup match with Boro. If they were thinking that Boro's recent form meant they would be an easy opponent, Saturday's win over Chelsea will have them worrying down in Schwabia.
The only redeeming feature of the weekend's action was the 11-goal thriller (and I don't use the term loosely) between Schalke and Leverkusen. An open game lead to a 3-1 lead for Schalke at half-time. So far so good, but Berbatov's goal soon after half-time cut Leverkusen's deficit. The Königsblauen struck back almost immediately with two goals making it 5:2. At this point you'd think that most teams would have rolled over and died, but remarkably Bayer came back with two more goals. 5:4 with 20 minutes to go. Game on. However, that was where the comeback ended; Lincoln's freekick and Asamoah's 81st minute shot clinched the win for the Blues in a breathless game. Just think about it: 25 goals in one weekend and 11 came from one game.
