There was a total of 36 goals scored in the 9 Bundesliga games played over the weekend. That equates to an average of 4 goals in every game played in Germany's top flight in the past three days. Notable results included Kaiserslautern's demolition of Schalke, Borussia Dortmund's 4-1 victory over namesake rivals Borussia Mönchengladbach and Hamburg beating Stuttgart in a six goal thriller. But why have their been so much goals in the Bundesliga this season?
After a 3-0 win over Werder Bremen, Schalke must have thought they were on their way up after Raúl's hat-trick. However in hindsight, the result might have come about due to Werder's poor form than the Königsblauen's great performance. After all, Werder went on to lose 3-0 to Tottenham leaving them bottom of Group A with two points and with no way of progressing in the Champions League. That said, Schalke probably thought that they had a good chance of getting all three points from the Fritz-Walter-Stadion. Kaiserslautern had over ideas. The 5-0 scoreline flattered Schalke as they had many chances to win over their more illustrious opponents. Kaiserslautern's first two goals both came from right-hand corners, with Christian Tiffert swinging the ball in for Srđan Lakić to power in the first and Martin Amedick heading the second past Manuel Neuer. Lakić showed great determination to get to the ball for the first goal, but Schalke's failure to pick him up left him on his own in front of the goal. Lakić went on to add another, coolly slotting home after a through ball from Christian Tiffert, which led to the former's second goal and the latter's third assist. Kaiserslautern added two more goals later on to humiliate Schalke and condemn them to 16th place.
While Schalke lost on Saturday, another Ruhr club won to keep themselves top in the Bundesliga. Yes, the youthful Borussia Dortmund side won again. It was the other Borussia that took the league, however, thanks to a wonderful goal from Marco Reus, a Dortmund native. For those that don't know, Reus is an almost carbon copy of a young(er) Marko Marin in terms of stature, style and ability. And the young German confirmed his promise by scoring a fierce strike into the Dortmund net. Dortmund came back into the game with a header rom Neven Subotić and took the lead when Shinji Kagawa rounded the 'keeper after a Mario Götze assist. The ages of the players mentioned in the last sentence: 21, 21 and 18 respectively. Jürgen Klopp does like to build a young team. Another young German player, Kevin Großkreutz, 22, scored the third goal for Dortmund, poking the ball in after a sublime back-heel from Lucas Barrios. The Paraguayan then added a goal for himself after being sent through by another Mario Götze through ball, who is showing signs of becoming a great playmaker.
The Bundesliga has overtaken the diminishing Serie A as third in UEFA's league coefficients and is fast becoming a major league. While the high goal scoring indicates a sense of risk taking (also resulting in the high amount of young German talents being given match action) it could also indicate poor defending. One reason why the Italian league is such a low scoring league is due to the high quality of defending. John Foot, in Calcio, says 'Italian teams have not been defensive. They have, quite simply, been much better at defending than other European teams.' The opposite can be said of German teams, with the attacking intent the teams are showing a result of the poor defending. One reason why Werder Bremen have been so poor in the Champions League is due to the comic defensive partnership of Per Mertesacker and Sebastian Prödl. There would be no chance that the two would play together in an Italian team of the same quality. Look at last year's Champion's League Final. While Walter Samuel and Lúcio were assured in Inter's defence, Martin Demichelis offered little protection at Bayern's back and remains a shaky player. So what are the reasons for lots of goals in the Bundesliga? A mixture of risk-taking, attacking intent and poor defending.
Round-up of the Bundesliga results:
Mainz 3-0 Nürnberg
Bayern München 4-1 Eintracht Frankfurt
Hamburger 4-2 Stuttgart
Hannover 3-0 Freiburg
Hoffenheim 2-2 Bayer Leverkusen
Kaiserslautern 5-0 Schalke
Borussia Dortmund 4-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach
Werder Bremen 3-0 St. Pauli
Köln 1-1 Wolfsburg
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