Also at the game was Freiburg coach Christian Streich – unsurpising seeing as how Hertha are their opponents next Sunday, and Germany u21 coach Stefan Kuntz. I’m unlikely to be collecting any Hansi videos and photos now so Stefan will have to do:
Fresh off their disappointment in the DFB Pokal Hertha were handed the unenviable task of facing almost champions Bayern. A win for Bayern would have sealed the title this weekend but only if Dortmund lost to Stuttgart. Bayern managed to find their way past Hertha in an efficient but most unsatisfying way. Dortmund however prevented them from being able to celebrate just yet. Unlike Bayern they had no trouble getting past Stuttgart and there was no luck involved with any of their goals. Indeed after the third it seemed as if Stuttgart had all but given up. Last week Jogi Löw said he was sure that Stuttgart would avoid relegation but then he said the same thing about Freiburg last year and look how that turned out. I’m not so sure he’s right this time either, Stuttgart usually do get away with it by the skin of their teeth but their luck has to run out sometime surely. I wouldn’t make any predictions as regards who’s going to survive, with just two points between them and Bremen and only three separating them from Frankfurt I really wouldn’t. I guess next week will be the telling one, not just because there’s only two games left after that but because Bremen face Stuttgart on Monday night. The final day of the season offers up a relegation clash too with Bremen hosting Eintracht Frankfurt. I hate the fact that’s the case because those are the two teams I would hate to see getting relegated. I hate it even more because I’m not sure I can watch it, I’m set on watching Bayern play H96 on the last day of the season just so I can watch them get relegated, getting revenge I guess. I don’t really need to watch it, I mean they are all ready relegated because of their draw against Ingolstadt and Eintracht Frankfurt’s victory on Friday. I’ve just been set on it ever since seeing the schedule, even before they were in actual danger of being relegated.
Bayern needed the first half and a little bit to get past Hertha’s defence and an impressive Thomas Kraft upon his return from injury, when they did finally do so it involved a bit of luck, Arturo Vidal’s shot taking a slight deflection on it’s way into the net. It wasn’t a pretty game to watch but their second goal certainly was, no luck involved there from Douglas Costa:
Dortmund’s game was a lot more watchable thankfully, especially seeing as how it’s the one I chose to watch live. It was a game which was guaranteed goals, neither side really the goalless draw kind of team. Unfortunately for Stuttgart it was for the most part one way traffic, after dominating for the opening twenty minutes Dortmund finally got off the mark through Shinji Kagawa. From then on you got the feeling it wasn’t a question of whether Dortmund would win or not but by how many. A little over twenty minutes later on the stroke of half-time Christian Pulisic made it 2-0, a goal which makes him the youngest ever player to score two goals in the Bundesliga apparently. Dortmund killed off the game eleven minutes into the first half with the goal coming from Henrikh Mkhyitaryan. It was a particularly cruel goal for Stuttgart’s keeper Przemyslaw Tyton to let in. He was unable to get hold of the header from Ramos and could only push it out into the path of the waiting Mkhyitaryan who was never going to miss from there. My favourite moment of the match however is reserved for Thomas Tuchel, the game was highly entertaining but Thomas was almost equally as fun to watch. Once more he provides another fun GIF for my collection. The funniest thing about his reaction is all he’s arguing over is a throw-in, as if that really matters:
The real highlight however is Jogi related and happened by accident, I hadn’t planned on watching the repeat of Leipzig’s game on Monday night but given the result I just had to. It’s a good thing I did because I got three awesome pictures of Jogi as a result, they aren’t from that game. I don’t even know what game they’re from or when. All I know is it’s a Stuttgart game:
The rest of the weekend was very entertaining too with Köln beating Darmstadt 4-1 and Leverkusen orchestrating an impressive comeback against Schalke. Going into the game Leverkusen were in better form, in particular their keeper Bernd Leno who hadn’t conceded a goal in five games. Yet it was Schalke who took the lead, though they didn’t convert the penalty they were gifted early in the first half. The way Schalke let themselves get overrun is a fair reflection of their entire season, losing puts their Champions League ambitions in doubt, leaving them with the more realistic prospect of the Europa League again. Sunday afternoon provided more entertainment with Gladbach erasing the memory of their truly awful performance against H96 last week. It was the second game which was of more interest to me, Eintracht Frankfurt playing host to Mainz. I don’t care so much about the latter’s European ambitions but I do care whether or not Eintracht Frankfurt get relegated. It wasn’t the most attractive game you’ll ever see, not by a long shot but they got the job done. Getting just their second victory under new coach Niko Kovac, funnily enough the scorer of the winner was Anis Ben-Hatira who scored the winning goal in the other victory since Kovac replaced Armin Veh. Technically it’s an own goal because it took a deflection off Stefan Bell but that won’t matter to Eintracht Frankfurt I suppose.
