Bundesliga in the star check
The provocative walk-gate of Stuttgart’s Wamangituka annoys the people of Bremen
VfB attacker Silas Wamangituka walks calmly towards the Bremer Tor before he kicks the ball over the line
© Robin Rudel / Picture Alliance
FC Bayern and RB Leipzig set off a fireworks display in which Thomas Müller contributed two hits. BVB is once again showing its fragile nerves and Bremen has to put up with a cheap provocation.
This is how the games in the Bundesliga went
All results of the 10th matchday, the table and statistics for reading can be found here in stern-Ticker.
Excitement of the game day
The goal was a provocation. Defender Ömer Toprak tried to pass the ball on to keeper Jiri Pavlenka in his chest, but attacker Silas Wamangituka sprinted quickly, grabbed the ball and didn’t shoot it into the empty goal. Instead, he stopped, looked around in peace, and trotted leisurely towards the goal line. It wasn’t until Pavlenka came running to him that he kicked the ball into the net. This is what happened in stoppage time, in which VfB Stuttgart increased this goal to 2-0 against Werder Bremen.
The Bremer were beside themselves, although it was not entirely clear whether it was due to the self-inflicted slapstick number and the overall poor performance or the unfair shot of the VfB attacker. Bremen’s David Selke definitely confronted the provocateur, and Wamangituka saw the yellow card. “I think it was disrespectful. We don’t need to talk about it. The boy is playing a great game. Then he should just hit the ball in and not run around like that,” said Selke after the final whistle. It was also particularly bitter because the Bremen team actually scored seconds before the end of the match and – theoretically – they would have drawn a draw without the faux pas. But as it is, Werder slips dangerously close to the relegation region deeper in the table.
Match day winner
This is Thomas Müller. The anarchist of German football, whose paths and technical finesse are sometimes unfathomable, made a significant contribution with his two goals in the 3: 3 against RB Leipzig to keep FC Bayern at the top of the table. In the event of a defeat, the Mateschitz Club would have passed them by. So the old order is preserved for the time being. However, Bayern should defend a little better in the future than on Saturday. The defensive was organized in a similar way to the classic chicken pile or that of the national team. Speaking of which: Löw wants to appear in front of the cameras himself on Monday and explain why he is absolutely the right man as a national coach. Probably he will be asked again about the personality of Müller and he will probably explain again verbatim why he does not play in the national team.
Game day loser
The training and youth club Borussia Dortmund sometimes has it with the nerves. Most recently, the black and yellow only get three draws in a week. Basically, this is not a disaster. But if you show gorgeous football beforehand and the incredible goalscorer Erling Haaland scores goals as if on an assembly line, then that is the yardstick by which you are measured. BVB has therefore lost a little ground in the fight for the title and has slipped to fourth place in the table. What is worrying: The team shows a certain dependence on Haaland. Since he is missing, only two goals have been scored. Without “his runs in depth”, as coach Lucien Favre noted, there is no goal risk. There is also a strange quirk: only three of the 22 Bundesliga goals come in the first half. In the game against Eintracht Frankfurt, Dortmund only scored 1-1 in the second 45 minutes, which was also the final score. In addition, even the smallest phases of weakness offer the critics an immediate opportunity to question coach Lucien Favre. This is now an integral part of the subject repertoire when you talk about BVB. It is difficult to escape this cycle. Or it needs a Haaland.
You should see this gate (again)
This time it’s not about the goal itself. It was a header from Freiburg’s Philipp Lienhart to equalize 1: 1 against Borussia Mönchengladbach (final score: 2: 2). It’s about the template that you rarely see. The Freiburg Baptiste Santamaria took a corner volley and brought the ball with an overhead kick in front of the goal, where Lienhart only held his head. The teammates therefore celebrated Santamaria more than the goalscorer – and rightly so.
image of the day Schalke messed up a penalty against Bayer Leverkusen © Leon Kügeler / AFP
You don’t want to be a Schalke fan these days. The Royal Blues have not won 26 games across seasons and have lost the last ten games in a row! Schalke are bottom of the table and nobody knows where this will end. Then there is a penalty for the miners in the game against Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday evening, but they don’t even get that into the goal. Steven Skrzybski awards him when the score is 0-2. The fact that the first goal was an own goal doesn’t matter anymore. Bayer won 3-0 and is now second in the table.
