Eintracht Frankfurt dreams of the Champions League, 1. FC Cologne wins the Rhenish derby at Borussia Mönchengladbach thanks to Elvis Rexhbecaj, Sport-Club Freiburg ends its BVB curse and FC Bayern is flying with a tailwind to the FIFA Club World Cup – the topics of the 20th Bundesliga matchday.
In the style of a top team: Frankfurt dreams of the Champions League after the 3: 1 against TSG
With the 3-1 away win at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt has been unbeaten in nine games. Seven wins, two draws and the fifth away game in a row in which the Eagles scored twice – an impressive series. And it doesn’t seem like the SBU is going to collapse this season. The team is consistently performing well, the offensive is in a remarkable goal mood. In the last three games alone, Eintracht Frankfurt scored eleven goals. The reward is fourth place after 20 games played.
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Against TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, Filip Kostic first brought the Adler 1-0 lead, later preparing the 2-1 for Evan Ndicka and the 3-1 for Andre Silva. Kostic also did not shy away from doing a lot of defensive work. The top form of the left winger could be due to the return of his Serbian friend Luka Jovic. Team-mate Sebastian Rode confirmed after the final whistle at Sky: “It already gives the impression that Filip laughs even more than usual during training or in the dressing room. When a good friend like that comes back, you feel a little better. He shows that on the field too. “
The SGE is next to VfL Wolfsburg the team of the hour. The wolves are two points ahead of the eagles in third place. The Hessians exploited the mistakes of the competition from Mönchengladbach and Dortmund. They are four points ahead of their NRW rivals. Central defender Martin Hinteregger expressed the SGE’s clear ambitions at Sky: “We are now doing well. We look at the table and want to play internationally. Eintracht has never played the Champions League. This is a huge dream. “
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Head coach Adi Hütter has had six victories against TSG since the start of his term in office. After the final whistle, he was correspondingly satisfied in an interview with Sky, but does not want to slow down his Champions League dreams: “At the moment it would be an absolute dream. But there are still 14 games to play. Today I’m happy about this well-deserved victory over TSG. We will now prepare for Cologne. They are very uncomfortable and tactically disciplined. What I will not slow down is the euphoria and it is there. “
2) 2: 1 in the derby against Gladbach: Cologne remains stable in the fight for relegation
With the derby win at Borussia Mönchengladbach, the week of 1. FC Köln took an extremely positive turn. During the week, FC were unlucky enough to be eliminated on penalties at SSV Jahn Regensburg. The Cologne team suffered from cup frustration for three days until double packer Elvis Rexhbecaj became a derby hero in the 2-1 win in Gladbach. “We’ll take a deep breath now and take two days off. Then we’ll prepare for the next game on Wednesday. Difficult moments like this can weld you together even more. That should be the goal: Out of an extreme situation in which you weigh up a lot , you can also get a lot of community “, said FC managing director Horst Heldt the day after the derby, drawing a lot of positive things out of an eventful week.
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Cologne is increasingly proving to be an unpleasant opponent for playfully strong teams. Now Gladbach had to believe in it. Dortmund had a similar experience with the billy goats. The FC does not shine through playful finesse, the result is clearly in the foreground. The Rhinelander exploit enough of the few clear scoring chances to collect three points. In the derby against Gladbach there were three shots on goal, two of which Elvis Rexhbecaj put in goal. The loan from VfL Wolfsburg also scored 1-0 in Mainz in December, and now he achieved the derby victory with his brace almost single-handedly. With 91 percent won duels and two goals, the 23-year-old was the match winner against the foals.
>>> Rexhbecaj and Co. celebrate the derby victory with a copy of the Gladbach corner flag cheers
After the final whistle, the left-footer turned the focus back to the upcoming tasks: “But tomorrow we have to analyze the game and look at the critical scenes. Some of them were there. Then we have to continue working normally next week. We have to work every week for Fight for points. We’re not Bayern Munich. ” With 21 points the basis for relegation and the remaining 14 games is laid. Four points ahead of Arminia Bielefeld in relegation rank 16, a whopping eight ahead of Mainz 05 in table position 17. If the Cologne team keep their effectiveness high and maintain their compactness, Frankfurt Eintracht could also grapple with their teeth on the coming match day.
3) Prank cracks BVB
The Sport-Club Freiburg had to be patient for almost eleven years – on matchday 20 the time had finally come. The Breisgau team won their first win against Borussia Dortmund since May 8, 2010. But the waiting time was over not only for the club, which played its 700th Bundesliga game on Saturday.
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For Christian Streich, the longest-serving coach in the Bundesliga, the 2-1 win against BVB should have been a relief. In 16 attempts so far, Streich could not beat the black and yellow – in the 17th attempt it finally succeeded. In an intense game it went goalless into the half-time break, in the second round the SCF then paved the way to the home win with a double strike: First Wooyeong Jeong, a little later Jonathan Schmid also followed up with a long-range shot. Youssoufa Moukoko provided the Dortmund connection goal.
“We thought for a long time what tactics we would use,” explained Streich after the game. “I’m very, very happy that we decided on this tactic. And the important thing is that the guys can then implement it.” With their success against BVB, Freiburg are now eighth in the table with 30 points – in sixth place within striking distance of Saturday’s opponent.
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4) FC Bayern with a tailwind for the Club World Cup
It was really not easy for FC Bayern Munich at the start of the 20th matchday: In the thick snowfall in Berlin, Hertha BSC demanded everything from the league leaders on Friday evening, but in the end a 1-0 win for the record champions was on the scoreboard. The acclaimed goalscorer for the Champions League winner, who went to the FIFA Club World Cup after the game in Qatar, was Kingsley Coman, who scored the golden goal with a deflected shot from a distance (21st).
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“When we entered the pitch to warm up and the lawn smacked so easily, you could already smell that it will most likely be a game that will also be fiercely competitive,” said a visibly relaxed Thomas Müller after his narrow success Munich, who also missed a penalty. Robert Lewandowski failed after Hertha’s keeper Rune Jarstein fouled Leroy Sané from the penalty spot on the Norwegian goalkeeper of Berlin. But FCB also benefited from the hosts’ exploitation of chances: Shortly before the end, Matheus Cunha even missed the great opportunity to equalize.
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That’s one of the reasons why Hansi Flick was satisfied with his team’s performance. “We wanted to leave for Qatar with a win. Now it will be a nice flight,” said Bayern’s coach before leaving for the FIFA Club World Cup in Doha, which then became a bit more complicated turned out to be planned. On Monday, Bayern will meet Al Ahly SC from Cairo, the winner of the African CAF Champions League. “We want to try to get the next title for the club,” said coach Hansi Flick: “It would be the sixth title within a year. The team would make history with it.”
5) 5: 2 -Leverkusen shoots the cup frustration from the soul
After the bitter end in the DFB-Pokal round of 16 against regional league team Rot-Weiss Essen, Bayer Leverkusen shot their frustration off their minds against VfB Stuttgart. With 5: 2 (2: 0) the Werkself sent the offensive climber home, Kerem Demirbay opened the goal spectacle with a double. With a number of good scoring chances, Peter Bosz’s team could have decided the game against overwhelmed guests before half-time. The offensive around the congenial piano duo Moussa Diaby and Leon Bailey played itself into a frenzy at times and also produced statistically spectacular.
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Florian Wirtz, who scored the 4: 2, became the first U18 player to score five goals in the Bundesliga. New signing Demarai Gray scored his first goal in the first Bundesliga game ten minutes after coming on. The bottom line was the biggest Bayer home win of the season.
After two narrow defeats against direct rivals Wolfsburg and Union Berlin, the spectacular victory was also Leverkusen’s comeback in the race for the Champions League places. With 35 points, Bayer remains on the third Wolfsburg (38) and puts Frankfurt under pressure at their game in Hoffenheim. Dortmund (32) left feathers in Freiburg. To forget
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The cup in Essen is of course not forgotten. But after the convincing 5-2, Leverkusen’s goals for the season in the Bundesliga and Europa League can not only be achieved, they can also be approached with justified optimism.
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