Bundesliga Week 18 Round Up: Signs of life at the bottom

Editorial | Article posted on January 27th, 2025

Bundesliga Week 18 Round Up: Signs of life at the bottom
By Terry Duffelen on Jan 26, 2025 in Bundesliga, Latest | 0 comments

After a month off for warm weather training and general battery recharging, the German Bundesliga returned to action last Friday with a highly anticipated top of the table clash between third placed Borussia Mönchengladbach and the top of the table, Bayern Munich. However, the real drama of the weekend did not come at the Borussia Park where the home team submitted to a 2-0 defeat but elsewhere at Nuremberg, Wolfsburg and probably most excitingly at Freiburg.
SC Freiburg's European commitments and squad changes were an unfortunate legacy of a fantastic 2025/13 season in which they finished 5th. But the Breisgau club are small in relation to the German top division and this season has proved something of a struggle. However, they finished the first half of the season with a home win against Hannover and looked to lift themselves out of the bottom three with a win against, Bayer Leverkusen who, despite being second in the table, had lost their previous two league encounters and were there for the taking.
Things got off to a rotten start for the home side when Lars Bender scored in the opening minutes for Leverkusen. Just over twenty minutes later Admir Mehmedi equalised before Simon Rolfes retook the lead with a set piece header. In the second half, Jonathan Schmidt bit back for Freiburg and the battle was joined so to speak. This ferocious match was brought to a fitting climax by Felix Klaus who scored the winner for Freiburg at the death.
So that was Freiburg out of the bottom three but not by such a margin as they hoped. This is because fellow strugglers, Nürnberg and Eintracht Frankfurt notched up impressive wins. The latter won their first home game of the season against sixth placed Hertha Berlin thanks to a single goal from Alex Meier. Nürnberg had not won game all season but there have been signs of life under new coach Gertjan Verbeek and their 4-0 win over Hoffenheim was emphatic but not altogether surprising given their opponent's defensive issues. The win did nothing for Der Club's league position but it should serve to demonstrate to their fans that their players are up to the challenge.
To complete the relegation picture, Eintracht Braunschwieg drew 0-0 at Werder Bremen in a game which the English TV commentator describes as "intriguing" which tell you all you need to know about that game (although Werder denied a goal which was wrongly judged offside).
You may have read my post last month about Hannover 96, their dreadful away record and ultimate painful decision to sack their coach Mirko