A curiosity in the Bundesliga this weekend: The starting signal for the 26th matchday is not on Friday evening as usual, but on Saturday afternoon. There is no Friday game. The reason for this is simple: The German Football League (DFL) made a conscious decision to let the ball rest one day longer in the top division. Instead, four Bundesliga games will be played on both Saturday (due to the cancellation of the Augsburg-Mainz game due to corona) and Sunday. But why the DFL decision? It has to do with the Europa League participants…
advertisement
–
Because when the DFL finally scheduled the 26th matchday last December, the league had assumed that four Bundesliga clubs would play in the Europa League on Thursday during the week. “In view of the regeneration time” of the teams, the Friday game was finally “sacrificed” for a fourth game on Sunday. No wonder then that with Bayer Leverkusen (against 1. FC Köln, 3.30 p.m.), Eintracht Frankfurt (against VfL Bochum, 5.30 p.m.), Borussia Dortmund (against Arminia Bielefeld, 5.30 p.m.) and RB Leipzig (at Greuther Fürth, 7.30pm/all four DAZN) the four teams playing on Sunday that were still represented in the second-tier UEFA competition at the end of December.
–
However, what the DFL could not know: On Thursday, Bayer Leverkusen was the only player in the round of 16 of the Europa League (2: 3 at Atalanta Bergamo). The game between Eintracht Frankfurt and Betis Sevilla (2-1) was brought forward to Wednesday by UEFA due to a clash with FC Sevilla. RB Leipzig, which should have played against Spartak Moscow, received a bye for the quarter-finals because of the exclusion of Russian teams. Champions League relegated Borussia Dortmund made a fool of themselves in the play-offs and didn’t even qualify for the round of the top 16 teams.
–
From today’s perspective, a Friday game could have taken place, especially with the streaming service DAZN holds both the rights for all Friday and Sunday games – but not from the point of view of the game plan makers in December, and at that time the plan had to be officially and finally set. And the fact that the four (as of December) Europa League participants did not meet directly on matchday 26 did not make planning any easier.
–
But there is good news for all Friday game lovers. The ball will be rolling again in the Bundesliga next Friday evening – and this despite the unchanged assumption made by the game plan makers in December that four Bundesliga teams were in EL use. Why? Because two European Cup teams, RB Leipzig and Eintracht Frankfurt, play each other directly in the league, the DFL was able to keep it to three Sunday games and leave the game on Friday (Bochum-Gladbach) untouched.
–
