Although Bayern has been under fire, with their coach getting fired after the team had been thumped by Eintracht Frankfurt, they enjoyed a moralizing victory over their rivals.
‘Der Klassiker’ as it is most known showed that Dortmund is still not strong enough to compete with their Bavarian rivals and they were humiliated in dramatic fashion.
Meanwhile, Borussia Monchengladbach was able to get another victory and holds firm to the isolated lead of Bundesliga. And Bayern’s last weekend tormentor, Frankfurt, lost against Freiburg in a game with a quite ridiculous ending.
Look out for the current Bundesliga table.
Bayern Munich 4 x 0 Borussia Dortmund
The game that opposed Bayern Munich to Borussia Dortmund, known in the football world as ‘Der Klassiker’ was expected to be a thrilling tight affair. Dortmund had just come from a motivating comeback against Inter in the Champions League and Bayern had their pride hurt after a 5×1 defeat against Eintracht last weekend.
Still, the first Bundesliga game in charge for interim coach Hansi Flick was a walk in the park for Bayern, who completely demolished Dortmund. An act of very flavourful revenge, after Dortmund had beaten Bayern in the German SuperCup, in August.
Former Dortmund striker, Lewandowski, was a nightmare for Bayern. He needed just 17 minutes to open the hostilities, with a precise header. Being the lead top scorer of the Bundesliga, it is quite spectacular that the Polish striker had so much space to finish.
Halftime came with a tight margin for Bayern, although the Bavarians were much more threatening to make the second than Dortmund to level the game.
Lewandowski good, Hummels bad
And in the second half, we saw Bayern’s dominance once again. Lewandowski failed to score and unconsciously made a dummy pass to Serge Gnabry to finish the 2nd.
Dortmund did not have many goal opportunities and the only big chance they had to put their mark in the scoreline was when Hakimi set Paco Alcacer with an open goal. Alcacer’s clumsy finish did not make the cut, though.
Bayern punished them immediately after, as Robert Lewandowski scored yet another one. The 16th in 11 Bundesliga games (23 in total, in all competitions so far).
The game ended with another unfortunate Dortmund own goal, this time through Mats Hummels. He scored for his previous team, after switching Bayern to Dortmund this Summer (maybe he forgot which team he was playing for?).
Dortmund is now further away from the Bundesliga top, in the 6th position. Bayern is 3rd, 4 points away from Borussia Monchengladbach.
Borussia Monchengladbach 3 x 1 Werder Bremen
Gladbach took their chance with ‘Der Klassiker’ and consolidated their lead while seeing one of the possible opponents in the Bundesliga race getting further. The job they had themselves was defeating Werder Bremen at home and they achieved it, despite ending the game with 10 men.
The current Bundesliga leader had a morale boost on Thursday as they defeated Roma with a last-minute goal in their Europa League fixture. The hero was Marcus Thuram, who Gladbach signed during the Summer and who has been involved in 9 league goals in the last 6 games.
It was Rami Bensebaini though, who gave the lead to Gladbach against Bremen. The Algerian defender jumped higher than the Bremen wall during a free-kick, scoring his first goal for the club.
Before the halftime whistle, time to double the lead, with Ginter finding Marcus Thuram, who with a lucky header assisted Hermann for the 2×0. Yet another assist for the Frenchman.
Later, Bremen scored too, but Yuya Osako goal was disallowed, due to Milot Rashica’s foul on Zakaria.
Gladbach finishes the job with 10 men
Another chance in the second half, as Bensabaini fouled Osako and the ref pointed at the spot. Klaasen however, missed the conversion as Sommer jumped for a tremendous save.
The wasted chance was punished, with Gladbach’s third goal, coming from Hermann again.
Then, Bensabaini turned from hero to zero as he got a sent off following another miscalculated tackle.
Bittencourt supreme consolation goal, was worthless for the result, as the match ended 3×1 with all points going to Gladbach. Werder Bremen failed to win a game in the last 7 matches and they are 14th in the Bundesliga.
Hertha Berlin 2 x 4 Leipzig
In Berlin, Hertha celebrated the 30 years of the Fall of the Berlin Wall with a beautiful celebration and tifo. Curiously, their opponent in this game was RB Leipzig, a team from a city that used to play on Eastern Germany and thus this is a game that would not be possible before the reunification.
Despite this, Leipzig quickly ruined the party as they continued their rampant form. After thumping Wolfsburg, Mainz, and Zenit, Hertha was their next victim.
They still scored first, through Mittelstadt. However, just 5 minutes later Timo Werner was re-establishing the tie converting a penalty kick. Marcel Sabitzer scored for the 4 matches in a row – second in the Bundesliga schedule – before the interval, to take Leipzig leading into the break.
More goals only in the last minutes of the game, as Slovenian attacking midfielder Kampl scored his first goal of the season. Already in extra time, Timo Werner added another one to his record, making it 4 for Leipzig.
David Selke’s consolation goal immediately after was no use, and Hertha has now 3 defeats in a row.
Freiburg 1 x 0 Eintracht Frankfurt
We were expecting more from Eintracht Frankfurt after they demolished Bayern Munich last weekend. Instead, they fell short to a defeat against Freiburg, in a game that had 3 red cards.
Frankfurt got already reduced to 10 men at the end of the first half, as Gelson Fernandes saw his second yellow card and got marching orders.
To make things worse, Nils Petersen capitalized on the advantage and score the winning goal for Freiburg.
As the match was heading to the end, Eintracht got another player sent off in a quite comical way. David Abraham was trying to pick the ball quickly to put it back into the game, but coach Christian Streich made a dummy movement to waste some time.
Abraham took immediate revenge as he pushed the opponent’s coach to the ground. Chaos ensured and in the aftermath, Vincenzo Grifo from Freiburg also got the red card.
Still, both players and the coach shook hands after the game. The moment was captured though and both players will have to endure the punishment.
Wolfsburg 0 x 2 Bayer Leverkusen
Bayer Leverkusen finally stopped having disappointing results and they got two wins on the bounce, after their midweek victory against Atletico Madrid. On the other hand, Wolfsburg who lost their invincibility last week got another consecutive defeat.
The Wolves were down 0x1 in the middle of first half, when Bellarabi opened the scoresheet.
Throughout the game, Wolfsburg tried to come back, but they were unable to get past Hradecky. On the other end, Paulinho finished the job in the last minute of extra time, leaving the result 0-2.
Bayer Leverkusen did not win a game in the league since September. Meanwhile, Wolfsburg who was so close to the top some weeks ago now dropped to 10th.
Koln 1 x 2 Hoffenheim
It was in a fashionable late drama that Hoffenheim got their 5th win in a row. After only 1 win in the 6 opening games, Alfred Schreuder has found the antidote to solve his team’s problems and they have been rampant since their win against Bayern Munich.
This weekend they faced struggling side Koln and what seemed like an easy game on paper, became a harder task when Jhon Cordoba put the home side on front.
Hoffenheim had to wait until the second half for an equalizer and it came from Sargis Adamyan. The Armenian forward scored his 3rd goal of the season, after being responsible by a brace against Bayern Munich.
The game had 8 minutes of extra time and was dragged to the limit when Jonas Hector was booked for a foul on Locadia. Locadia converted the penalty himself and delivered all 3 points to the away side.
Hoffenheim is now 5th after a tremendous recovery and Koln is 19th.
Schalke 04 3 x 3 Fortuna Dusseldorf
Schalke lost an opportunity to get back into the top 5 after they conceded a draw against Fortuna Dusseldorf. The responsible was Rouwen Hennings, as the 32-year-old forward scored a hat trick in the Veltins Arena.
The hosts had a positive first half, as Daniel Caliguri put them in front. And until the 62 minute of second time everything seemed fine. But then the ref pointed at the spot, due to a foul from McKennie, and Hennings level it through.
Still, 5 minutes later, Ozan Kabak re-established Schalke’s lead, being the 2nd goal of the Turkish defender in 2 consecutive games.
Yet, once again Hennings fired another one, after an assist from Thommy. Dusseldorf was not giving up on the game but – you can guess – Schalke scored a 3rd.
This time Suat Serdar – one more goal from a defender for Schalke. Hennings dressed up again as the hero and in the 85 minute completed the hattrick, flicking the ball over Nubel.
Fortuna is now 13th and Schalke is 7th, tied in points with their regional rivals of Borussia Dortmund.
Mainz 05 2 x 3 Union Berlin
Absolutely trashed last weekend by Leipzig (8×0), Mainz continued their low form with a defeat against newly-promoted Union Berlin. The Berliners got 2 consecutive victories in the Bundesliga for the first time in their history.
Union got up ahead when an unfortunate mistake from Brosinski resulted in an own goal.
Before halftime, Sebastian Andersson, who is the current top scorer of the team, scored his 4th goal of the season to take the visitors into the interval leading by 2.
Andersson netted his 2nd and tripled Union’s advantage 5 minutes into the second half. All 3 goals of Union Berlin were assisted by their captain fullback Christopher Trimmer.
It looked like Mainz was heading into another beating. However, they got some redemption as Onisiwo and Brosinski put two consolation goals on the scoresheet.
Union has climbed to a steady and safer 11th place. Mainz is now in the 16th position and the defeat resulted in the sacking of coach Sandro Schwarz.
Jan-Moritz Lichte and Michael Falkenmayer will lead the training sessions on an interim basis.
Paderborn 0 x 1 Augsburg
Paderborn and Augsburg faced each other in a battle among strugglers, with the latter getting the victory. Paderborn continues with a single victory in 11 games.
The only goal of the match came from a free-kick scored by Phillip Max in the 41 minutes.
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