Bundesliga Awards
Bundesliga Awards | The 31st matchday of the Bundesliga is over, at least if you exclude the Hertha BSC game, which had to be canceled. FC Bayern has lost, the battle for the Champions League is coming to a head. And we look back!
“Up and away” award: Erling Haaland
Borussia Dortmund and the VfL Wolfsburg faced each other on Saturday in the important game in the battle for the Champions League. The hosts from Lower Saxony had big plans and actually played quite well at the beginning. But Erling Haaland had something against the good start of the wolves and put Dortmund in the lead. BVB held up well and tried not to let Wolfsburg play their own game. Up until Jude Bellingham’s dismissal, that worked well.
Then Dortmund had to adapt a little. That worked quite well until Erling Haaland made his appearance. Ball win, Mo Dahoud switched lightning fast and put the Norwegian in the limelight. Haaland then did what he did best. He ran away from his opponents, brought a little space between himself and the opponent and shot the ball freezing Koen Casteels passing in the gate. 0: 2, lid on, Dortmund now has a good chance of passing Wolfsburg and / or Frankfurt.
“Clear superiority” award: Mainz 05
The played on Saturday afternoon FC Bayern abroad at Mainz 05. With a win, the record champions could have made the title clear. But it was clear that a difficult task with a lot of resistance awaits the favorite. Mainz is in the second half of the table in the European Cup and got ten out of twelve possible points in the last few games. The starting XI of FC Bayern was correspondingly strong. Everything of rank and name played.
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But that wasn’t enough either. The FSV Mainz 05 was superior in all respects and won in the end well deserved 2-1. Amazing: It wasn’t before phases in which Mainz literally bit off the favorites. The 05er found playful solutions, had significantly more chances to score in the first 45 minutes and defended so compactly in the second half that Bayern hardly had any clear chances. Robert Lewandowski took advantage of a present, but nothing more was in it. Relegation for Mainz is now within reach.
“Misestimated” award: Frankfurt defensive at 1-0
In the top game on Saturday evening, I had to Eintracht Frankfurt abroad at Bayer Leverkusen compete. The Hessians are fighting for the Champions League, but have mostly had bad experiences with Leverkusen, especially away from home, in recent years. The SGE also lost this top game, among other things due to a major voting problem immediately before the 1-0.
A long ball in the penalty area of Hessen became a problem. The center-backs looked up and saw the ball fly into the box without particularly caring about it. And Kevin Trapp, who otherwise showed a good performance, misjudged himself in this situation. Trapp came out too late Leon Bailey pushed the ball past the goalkeeper from an acute angle and Leverkusen led. In the end, the Werkself even won 3-1, which was okay.
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“Overslept” award: FC Augsburg and the first half
The FC Augsburg received 1. FC Köln on Friday evening. Augsburg wanted to prevent any further involvement in the relegation battle. Because coach Heiko Herrlich was criticized even before the game. The lack of further development in recent weeks and months has left its mark. And the first half of the FCA was a tragedy in several acts.
The Fuggerstadters slept through this game completely and made mistake after mistake with announcement. Augsburg had almost no chance and were already 3-0 down at the break. This result was not due to bad luck or unfortunate decisions, Augsburg was simply catastrophically bad. The fact that it was even tight again at the end of 2: 3 was more because the 1. FC Cologne impressively demonstrated in the second half that he is currently not fully consolidated.
Torrausch -Award: Joel Pohjanpalo
Union Berlin played against on Saturday afternoon Werder Bremen. The favorite role was with the Köpenickers, but it took a while for Union to live up to this role. Finding highlights in the first half was almost impossible. That made the game all the faster in the second round. That was due to two factors: on the one hand Werder experienced a real blackout and sometimes played catastrophically forward and made incredible mistakes, on the other hand they had Joel Pohjanpalo a good day,
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The Finnish striker at Union Berlin is well known as a clippers and proved that on Saturday. Pohjanpalo took advantage of the opportunities and got into a real frenzy. It took the attacker less than 20 minutes to achieve a flawless hat trick. Werder was defeated, and the goal to make it 3-1 didn’t change that much.
“Decision postponed” award: RB Leipzig
With the defeat of FC Bayern in Mainz, there was an opportunity for the record champions to become champions, so to speak “on the sofa”. RB Leipzig But did not want to do FC Bayern a favor and the home game against VfB Stuttgart win. In the last few weeks, RB’s exploitation of chances has been a big problem. In the first half it became clear that this cannot simply be shelved. In the first 45 minutes, of which RB played outnumbered for around 30 minutes, the knot did not burst.
But immediately after half-time. With the 1-0 in the back, the team of coach Julian Nagelsmann did much easier, and also received a penalty from the Swabians. Took advantage of this penalty Emil Forsberg to 2-0, which was also the final score. The decision in the title fight is postponed, RB also manifested second place.
“Abandoned” award: Stefan Ortega
At the end of the day had to Arminia Bielefeld on Sunday evening Borussia Monchengladbach play. That it is there for the guests too Stefan Ortega would arrive at the gate, it was clear. But the goalkeeper of the East Westphalia was, to put it casually, a “poor pig”. After just 18 minutes the foals were leading 3-0, played their opponents completely down and combined as they pleased.
But there were two parties involved. Gladbach played well, but Bielefeld was also desolate. Ortega was left in the lurch several times, his front men did not defend well. When you do a very, very decent performance as a goalkeeper and have to reach behind you five times at the end of the game, that speaks for itself. The 5-0 was okay and Ortega in particular should not be in a good mood after this game.
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