Bundesliga Matchday 19: The One Where Breitenreiter’s Fired

Another Bundesliga club fires its manager, but more interestingly it’s the hire which has people scratching their heads. In other matches, the highest scoring league in the world has the title chase all continue without losing ground. Who says top end soccer in Europe is boring?

Borussia Dortmund was a slow starter, but they got going to the tune of 4-1. The victory spelled the end to Andre Breitenreiter as coach for 96 as Hannover hires Thomas Doll as manager.

While BVB earned a comprehensive victory, it was odd that Hannover would hire Doll as the new manager. His style is about as abrasive as they come. Sexist comments aside, the man showed little tactical acumen while in charge of a Bundesliga outfit like BVB or HSV…over a decade ago. This won’t stave off relegation for Hannover, but this result will help BVB lift the title.

In weird twist of fate, Hoffenheim found a way to finally get the win. The 4-2 win over Freiburg was more than can be expected in the Black Forest.

For Freiburg, its points lost. Normally they are hard to beat at home. Take that away from them and they are relegation bound saved by worse teams below them. Hoffenheim on the other hand bounced up to sixth in the table as the race for the Europa League places is quite tight and they’d like that carrot to use in recruiting players and a new coach for next season.

Eintracht Frankfurt v Werder Bremen is a traditional match and this was one of the best yet. The 2-2 result and each club will wonder HOW DID WE NOT WIN?

The Buffalo offense for Frankfurt was on full display and Bremen had an attack of their own, but most important was the first goal. Young Maximilian Eggestein showed one of the best pieces of individual brilliance you’ll ever see as he danced around and through five Frankfurt defenders to score one of the goals of the season.

Elsewhere in the Bundesliga

Bayern Munich had a slow start as they defeated Stuttgart, 4-1. Canadian Alfonso Davies had a substitute appearance for his debut for the club.

Hertha and Schalke could have spared us the drab second half after a crazy first half in which the score was 2-2, and so it ended up being that way.

Borussia Monchengladbach 2-0 over Augsburg highlighted how the Foals are benefiting from one match a week while the end is in sight for the Bavarian side.

Mainz continued their good season, 2-1, over Nurnberg while this is the sort of result that spells doom for Der Klub.

Leverkusen attacked last week then did some more this week as they played a 3-0 win over Wolfsburg.

Leipzig never exited second gear in their 4-0 dominant performance over Dusseldorf. American Tyler Adams was able to get the first start in his first Bundesliga appearance.

Prost’s Bundesliga POTW

Koen Casteels get it this week in weird circumstances considering he conceded three goals. It was the ones that he hadn’t let in. Leverkusen never let him breathe and he was the busiest keeper in the league by a wide margin and without him this could have been epic bad.