Welcome to the winter of uncertainty. This was a weekend on which Bundesliga fans united to protest against the league’s clubs voting to press ahead and negotiate with private equity firms to sell a portion of international television rights, anathema to supporters who believe fans, rather than big business, should steer the direction of the game in Germany. There were 12 minutes of silence at the stadiums – representing the fans’ role as the 12th man – and the throwing of tennis balls and chocolate coins (Bochum’s Takuma Asano unwrapped and ate one of the coins, presumably giving him the extra energy to rattle in a volley and open the scoring in the 3-0 win over Union Berlin).
In a culture where supporter implication, and atmosphere, is the key tenet, there is little more eerie than a full stadium fallen silent. This was the second time this year that the option of approaching the private equity route was offered by the DFL (Deutsche Fußball Liga) to its 36 clubs from the country’s top two divisions. The model would be similar to deals agreed in Spain and France, providing the clubs with an immediate cash injection in excess of €1bn in exchange for up to 8% of future overseas rights; giving the winning bidder a stake in a newly set-up media rights operation, the DFL has been at pains to point out, rather than in the league itself.
The explanation that has convinced the required two thirds majority of the clubs’ respective boards has not convinced the fans. A statement from the ‘Fanszenen Deutschlands’, the united organised fan groups of the clubs, described accepting a deal as “a breach of the dam.” The protests that have punctuated this season became a wave at the weekend’s games. The fan statement also underlined previous victories, including getting Monday games binned after the last television deal came to a close.
What both sides would agree is that German football is at a crossroads. For the fans, that is leaving behind “the humility of professional football that was invoked during the pandemic”. For the DFL, it is about “sustainability” and developing a competitive structure – and it ultimately comes down to your viewpoint on what is the most valuable asset the league can have. A culture of fan democracy and implication above all, or an open and unpredictable sporting competition (bearing in mind the declining of the latter is hardly a Bundesliga problem alone)?
In a world where it feels like everything is changing, there was one constant honoured this weekend – Bayern Munich rolling in imperious style. Sunday’s late game sent high-flying, overachieving Stuttgart to Bavaria and for all the champions’ concerns in the light of last week’s hiding at Eintracht Frankfurt, there is little that rouses the best from Bayern like a proper challenge does. Sebastian Hoeness was going back to the club his family marked hoping to show what has made him such a star of the season – Dieter is his father, Uli his uncle – but instead “the start was decisive for the rest (of the game),” as he lamented afterwards.
That start was Harry Kane, perhaps the player who has defined the first half of the Bundesliga more than any other. He tapped Bayern in front after being set up by the currently stellar Leroy Sané, just 84 seconds into the game. One could sympathise with Hoeness. His best laid plans were one thing, but Kane’s influence on this team is bigger than any plan. “I am the system,” said James Harden infamously, asked how he would fit into his new team’s gameplan after he was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers at the start of November. The England captain would never be that immodest, but the description probably applies to him better than it does to The Beard.
Kane has been the glue holding this Bayern season together, glossing over all manner of issues. Thomas Tuchel almost found out here what the picture would look like without his catch-all, one-man solution. Kane, like Dayot Upamecano, spent two days in bed last week, one of a number of players affected by flu sweeping through the Bayern camp. He got himself out of his sickbed, scored his 19th and 20th goals this season in the Bundesliga alone, and Bayern were irresistible.
Stuttgart did little wrong. They certainly dominated possession but most of their ownership of the ball was futile. At half-time Bayern had enjoyed only 35% of the ball (they increased that to just 37% by the end) but it felt as if they were on gala form, perhaps the ultimate compliment to the visiting Hoeness and his team. What was remarkable was that Tuchel’s team found a performance of such incision, such energy, when they had been decimated by the bug. When the midfield pair of Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka went down ill the night before the game, along with substitute goalkeeper Sven Ulreich, the coach was forced into drastic action. His starting pair in the centre were 19-year-old Aleksandar Pavlović and Raphaël Guerreiro, himself just back from injury.
Pavlović was outstanding, taking charge of set pieces and laying on the second half goal from which Kim Min-Jae killed the game – he had already had one chalked off – from one corner. Thomas Müller, who also had a goal ruled out on the cusp of the interval, underlined that he and Jamal Musiala can coexist in the same XI and that Tuchel, like other Bayern coaches before him, shouldn’t just be keeping him at arm’s length. On the other side Sané underlined just how good he and Kane are for each other.
This was the best Bayern, motivated by a combination of an authentic occasion and the waft of adversity. Tuchel, who chided himself for having rushed Matthijs de Ligt to sit on the bench as “irresponsible” and the result of “an absolute emergency”, talked evocatively of putting “team spirit first” and of finding a way. “Today a few people looked around,” he said, “and there were empty seats everywhere in our meeting room. You have to go a few extra metres, and everyone did that.”
It was an appropriate sentiment at the end of a couple of days in which those in the stands too made it clear that they are prepared to cover extra ground to preserve the status quo.
Mönchengladbach 2-2 Werder Bremen, Leipzig 3-1 Hoffenheim, Darmstadt 0-1 Wolfsburg, Mainz 0-1 Heinenheim, Augsburg 1-1 Borussia Dortmund, Bochum 3-0 Union Berlin, Bayern Munich 3-0 Stuttgart, Leverkusen 3-0 Eintracht, Freiburg 2-0 Köln
Talking points
• They hadn’t seen him for six months but how Borussia Dortmund must have dreaded the sight of Finn Dahmen. The erstwhile Mainz reserve goalkeeper, who had saved a Sébastien Haller penalty as the 05ers denied BVB the title on the final day of last season, was at it again as Edin Terzič’s team extended their poor Bundesliga run to one win in seven games. Dahmen denied Niclas Füllkrug a late, acrobatic winner with a fine save as Dortmund were held at his new club, Augbsurg, and they are now five points shy of the top four.
• A tearful Emil Forsberg said goodbye to Leipzig after nearly nine years – he is joining New York Red Bulls – with a match-winning substitute cameo, breaking a sticky deadlock with Hoffenheim with an emphatic finish before helping Mohamed Simakan to get the clincher. “Everything I wanted happened here,” he told Sky. “I’m so grateful.”
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayer Leverkusen | 15 | 30 | 39 |
| 2 | Bayern Munich | 14 | 33 | 35 |
| 3 | RB Leipzig | 15 | 21 | 32 |
| 4 | Stuttgart | 15 | 15 | 31 |
| 5 | Borussia Dortmund | 15 | 5 | 26 |
| 6 | Freiburg | 15 | -4 | 24 |
| 7 | Hoffenheim | 15 | 2 | 23 |
| 8 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 15 | 5 | 21 |
| 9 | Wolfsburg | 15 | -6 | 19 |
| 10 | Augsburg | 15 | -4 | 18 |
| 11 | Borussia M'gladbach | 15 | -3 | 17 |
| 12 | Heidenheim | 15 | -8 | 17 |
| 13 | VfL Bochum | 15 | -11 | 16 |
| 14 | Werder Bremen | 15 | -7 | 15 |
| 15 | Union Berlin | 14 | -16 | 10 |
| 16 | Cologne | 15 | -16 | 10 |
| 17 | Mainz | 15 | -15 | 9 |
| 18 | Darmstadt | 15 | -21 | 9 |
