Bundesliga update: Will Leverkusen lead over Bayern Munich be enough to sign Cologne’s direct relegation?

Just before Christmas, the Bundesliga’s autumn season ended. There was no shortage of surprises, sensational results and record-breaking series. Bayer Leverkusen surprisingly dominated the autumn table, being the first team in history not to suffer the bitterness of defeat in twenty-five competitive matches in the autumn.

Leverkusen vs Bayern Munich

But will it be enough for Leverkusen to take the title, or will Thomas Tuchel pull the title out of the hat for Bayern Munich and prove to the critics that it doesn’t pay to underestimate them. And let’s not forget VfB Stuttgart, who played for salvation all last season only to comfortably hold on to the rungs that secure the Champions League group in the current one.

The winter break is traditionally very short in the Bundesliga. The seventeenth round starts in three weeks’ time when Bayern welcome Hoffenheim in a rematch at the Allianz Arena. In less than four weeks of the winter break, including the Christmas holidays, squad moves and training camps have to be squeezed in.

The calm is therefore only apparent in the Bundesliga teams. Club managements are working at full speed. Even the players are not getting much rest. With the new year, the training and preparation merry-go-round will be back in full swing. And who’s excited about the first winter break of his career is Harry Kane, who told a TV station: “When my teammates play in England, I’ll send out pictures of the beach. That’ll be fun!”

He himself has had an autumn full of superlatives. In fifteen games he scored twenty-one times, setting a new Bundesliga record. The old one was held by Erling Haaland, who needed twenty-two games to score the same number of goals. Kane is already the highest scoring English player in Bundesliga history, and no one doubts that he will decorate his debut season with more than one individual record.

But the question is whether he will fulfil his dream of winning his first major trophy. Bayern Munich crashed out ignominiously in the domestic DFB Cup and are on the short end of the stick in the league. Yet the team is not showing bad numbers at all – compared to previous seasons, Bayern has the most points after the autumn since Pep Guardiola was in charge from the bench.

Bayern are expected to be very active in the transfer market over the winter break. Tuchel intends to strengthen especially the midfield and defence. If the Munich side can manage the postponed match against Unionen Berlin, its gap to Bayer Leverkusen will be minimal again. According to some forecasts, both teams will pick up points in the spring at a similar pace as in the autumn. Perhaps we will see the Bundesliga winner hit the magic ninety-point mark for the first time since the 2015/16 season.

Pragmatist Tuchel knows very well that the hares are counted after the hunt. On the other hand, Xabi Alonso has rightfully developed into one of the pan-European coaching comets in his fourteen months on the Leverkusen bench. His work has unprecedentedly raised the game of the entire team, which thus dominates the team statistics of the competition. He has the most productive attack and the most solid defence – in twelve games he has always scored more than two goals, and received only twelve of them in the whole autumn.

As was shown in the last round against Bochum, concerns about the absence of Leverkusen’s African players from the edge of the spring season are not misplaced. Alonso deliberately sent a line-up without African players on the pitch, who are taking part in the African Cup of Nations at the end of January and the beginning of February. The absent Nigerian attacking gem Victor Bonifacio was replaced in an unprecedented manner by Czech striker Patrik Schick, who made a clean hat-trick after a long injury layoff.

VfB Stuttgart

Third-placed VfB Stuttgart is also having a dream season. Last season, it was one of the clear candidates for relegation for a long time. It was only the arrival of Sebastian Hoeness in April this year that brought a major turnaround. Stuttgart’s final sprint pushed them through to at least the barrage, where they later downed Hamburger SV and retained the Bundesliga for this season.

Serhou Guirrassy, who arrived from French side Rennes, put in a terrific performance under Hoeness. After a previous lacklustre engagement with 1. FC Koln, he is finally delivering the performances that were expected of him earlier in the Bundesliga. He scored fourteen times in the opening eight rounds, then was hampered by injury, but regained his form at the end of the autumn. Alexander Wehrle, the club’s chief executive, was clear about Guirrassy’s future before the holidays. Serhou feels comfortable here with his family and plays an important role in the team.” Let’s see, during the autumn there was speculation about Newcastle’s interest in the player and the €40 million figure.

Borussia Dortmund

Stuttgart have managed to neatly “sideline” perpetual title challenger Borussia Dortmund. He managed to beat them both in the league and in the German Cup, and put in a dominant performance to boot. The end of the autumn will certainly not be overlooked in Dortmund. I was at the local arena for Borussia’s 1-1 draw with Mainz, and I have to say that if it weren’t for Dortmund’s fine Advent markets and the outright beautiful DFB Museum, I would have regretted my long trip to the Rhineland.

Borussia Dortmund coach Terzic had to deal with the mental toughness of the team again after a year, but even individual interviews with the players didn’t lead to any improvement. The aforementioned final autumn draw with long-troubled Mainz was the proverbial last straw and shortly after the game the club’s board of directors met to – according to guaranteed reports – dismiss the coach.

But to everyone’s surprise, Terzic remained as Borussia’s coach. He was credited with the Champions League qualification and the good performance of the team in the group stage. In any case, Dortmund will have to turn around a lot in the spring to secure at least a place guaranteeing participation in the Champions League, six points behind fourth-placed RB Leipzig.

1. FC Koln

At the other end of the table, a balanced trio of relegation candidates – all with ten points each – Mainz, Cologne, Darmstadt – “emerged” during the autumn. Only three points better off is Union Berlin, who are still in real danger of “trading” this season’s Champions League participation for the second Bundesliga from next season. The quality of Union’s squad, however, is superior to the other three relegation candidates.

Among the clubs fighting to stay in the first Bundesliga is 1. FC Koln, which has scored a total of ten goals and has the worst offense in the league. To add insult to injury, the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed its ban on transfers and player registration for two transfer periods before Christmas. This definitely made Cologne a direct candidate for relegation. Two clubs are directly relegated from the First Bundesliga and the third is playing a barrage from the end.

On January 12th, the Bundesliga will start again and its fans will not be bored.

Source: Bundesliga