RUHR POWER TIGHTENS UP THE BUNDESLIGA TOP
Hertha's 5-game winning streak comes to a crashing halt at the hands
of Dortmund. Köln exposed Hamburg's carnival club defense 4 times but
still didn't manage a convincing victory. After 5 consecutive defeats
against Wolfsburg 1860 at least manage a point against their bogey
team.
Unterhaching dominate (!) Hansa in the Ostseestadion but still leave
with only one point. Rudi keeps his perfect record alive in his last
game in Freiburg. Schalke come back from behind to hand Bayern their
third away defeat of the season while undermining their own role as
challenger.
Werder snatches a rare home victory and much needed 3 points against
a hopeless Bochum. After four lucky victories FCK team boss Brehme
finally ran out of luck against Frankfurt. Cottbus do what they got
to do and that is rack up their points up home -- this time against
Stuttgart which puts VfB coach Rangnick under even heavier pressure.
10 NOVEMBER 2000
DORTMUND 2-0 HERTHA
Ricken 4
Reina 73
Ricken opened the scoring with a left-footed blast into the top right
corner already in the 4th minute after Reina directed the ball to him
from a blocked free kick. Borussia continued to march forward and a
Hertha team which had 5 games in the past 12 days in their bones was
simply too groggy to match their workrate.
Reina had a great chance 1-on-1 with Király but the Hertha 'keeper
made a fantastic save, Konstantinidis denied the yellow/black attacker
with a well-timed block on the follow-up. Ikpeba, starting in place of
Herrlich, wide-openly headed into the arms of Király at 45'. Hertha
only had two semi-chances via Preetz.
And as the league leaders were without their first choice defense of
Rehmer, Schmidt and Van Burik (all out injured; Sverisson, Tretschok
and Konstantinidis played in their place), had Deisler and Hartmann
marked out of the game by Dedê and Evanílson and Beinlich slowed down
by a foot injury the BVB decided the game 23 minutes into the 2nd half :
Stevic won the ball deep in his own half off Daei, initiated a one-man
counter attack, near the edge of the box he spread the ball to Reina
who had blown 3 solid chances earlier on but Billy didn't give up :
After hesitating for a second he cruised past Sanneh and whacked the
ball past the 'keeper into the roof to decide the game. [TL]
Attendance : 61,000
11 NOVEMBER 2000
KÖLN 4-2 HAMBURG
Kurth 16 Barbarez 62
Timm 19 Yeboah 69
Lottner 49, 86
Our players' minds were somewhere between the CL and Roma, Köln made
some use of this and was 3 goals up (a good team would have scored 4 or
5 at least in the first half alone and 3 or 4 more in the second) when
our players noticed that they have to play in the Bundesliga, too. Until
then about the half of Köln's chances were initiated by ridiculous
passes of our own players...
One more reason for this unnecessary defeat was our dwarven attack :
Kette, Präger and Kia are all around 1.70m and not much more than a joke
if it comes to headers -- but as we play with 2 wingers our striker has
to be strong and good in the air, like Tony or Barbie. Later both out
goals were scored by headers... Pagel made the same fault against
Haching 2 weeks ago -- i hope he's learned it now! :-(
As there were so many good chances for Köln that here would not be
enough space to describe them all (and i don't like to depress myself
;-)) i'll just describe the goals : A long ball from Cichon found Maul
sleeping -- Scherz took the ball to the baseline and crossed it low into
the area, where Kurth was faster than Hertzsch and tapped it in.
Voigt ran past the still sleeping Maul, crossed into the area, Butt's
save found Timm, who scored directly from 10m. At halftime Maul cried
because of his worst performance ever -- Pagel substituted him with
Tony. Barbie set up Lottner, who ran alone to the goal and converted.
After about 1 hour we came back from Rome and started to play football :
A Hertzscher cross found Barbie, who headed it in.
Tony gave the ball to Kia, who ran to the groundline and crossed it --
to Tony who headed in his first Bundesliga goal of this season. Now Köln
was nervous : Keller got sent off with his second yellow card for a harsh
foul on Präger -- near our penalty area.
As we played now with 5 forwards and just 2 defenders (Hoogma and Kientz
were substituted with Bester and Dolly) we were wide open for counter
attacks and Lottner finally sealed our defeat with his second goal.
There's just 3... err... 4 positive things about this game ;-) : Tony's
first league goal, Hertzscher's first good cross ;-), that Barbie
defended his goalscoring lead in the league -- and to know that one can
never be sure to defeat us, even if leading by 3 goals... [SM]
Red Card : Keller 78
Attendance : 40,000
1860 MÜNCHEN 2-2 WOLFSBURG
Agostino 33 Juskowiak 1
Max 37 Maric 88
Nowak's cross was left sailing unhindered into the area, Akpoborie
pulled it back for Juskowiak who scored his 5th of the season after
only 42 seconds (fastest goal of the season). Kryger hauled down
Max in the box but Reitmaier saved his old buddy Häßler's penalty.
New Lion Riseth (on loan from Celtic) returned Hengen's short
clearance and Max put through Agostino for the equalizer. Only
4 minutes later Max brilliantly killed Häßler's free kick, shook
off Kryger and shot past Reitmaier to give the hosts the lead at
half time.
Wolves besieged the Lions' area in the 2nd half : Jentzsch did well
to save Akpoborie's close-distance shot from Juskowiak's trademark
flick-on. Almost with the full time whistle Rische sprung onto a
corner and fellow substitute Maric banged in the last-gast equalizer.
[TL]
Attendance : 21,800
ROSTOCK 2-2 UNTERHACHING
Herzog 75 (og) Herzog 45
Rydlewicz 81 Breitenreiter 89
Hendrik Herzog opened the scoring with a powerful header under the
crossbar from Haber's corner. The former Hertha defender then also
nodded one in on the other side, beating Agali to Rydlewicz' cross.
'Haching weakly cleared a corner, Rydlewicz unpacked his hammer
and fired Hansa into the lead from the edge of the box.
Oberleitner headed against the post and Breitenreiter headed
in Novak's cross at 89' to give 'Haching a very deserved point.
Hansa has to send "Thank You"-cards to 'keeper Martin Pieckenhagen
who was out of this world in this game* and saved half a dozen
crystal clear chances.
* = Actually that was his form from 2-3 years ago where he was
the most outstanding 'keeper in the league. [TL]
Attendance : 13,000
FREIBURG 0-1 LEVERKUSEN
Ramelow 62
Bayer 04 have unbelievably appointed Hans-Hubert "Gib ihm 'ne Möhre
extra" Vogts as new coach, this match was the last for undefeated
team boss Völler.
Both teams were once again so tactically even that they egalized each
other for an hour until Ballack put through Neuville on the left side,
his shot rebounded off the post to Ramelow who fired the game winner
into the roof.
Rudi's record as coach of Leverkusen :
Competition P W D L Goals Dif Pts
Bundesliga 4 3 1 0 4 :0 +4 10
Champions League 2 1 1 0 1 :0 +1 4
DFB-Pokal 1 1 0 0 2 :1 +1 3
Up next for Freiburg : Kaiserslautern, Bayern München, Hertha BSC.
[TL]
Attendance : 25,000 (sold out)
SCHALKE 3-2 BAYERN MÜNCHEN
Möller 58 Élber 33
Asamoah 68 Paulo Sergio 59
Sand 71
62,000 at the sold out Parkstadion saw lots of emotions, heat and semi
chances until Élber tapped in Tarnat's free kick a little over 10 mins
before half time. Giovane almost added a 2nd minutes later when he did
his trademark "kill ball, spin around on the beer mat & shoot"-move but
his blast cannoned back off the crossbar.
After the game got off to a slow start into the 2nd half Andy Möller
took matters into his own hands : Got the ball in midfield, put on his
turbo and eased past Sagnol and Jeremies before beating Kahn with a
well-placed shot into the far corner, his 1st goal in a Kings' Blues
shirt.
Tarnat crossed, via Élber the ball fell to the feet of the wide-open
Paulo Sergio who just does not miss these easy chances, once again
Bayern in the lead. Schalke responded, Kahn was forced into a great
save by Van Hoogdalem's bullet header.
Olli Nazionale then had more than his hands full with Sand's stiff shot
but still managed to parry it to the side, unfortunately for him Mpenza
swung it straight back in and as Andersson and Sforza were sleeping
Asamoah finished the action with a diving header, 2-2.
With an almost similar move Schalke went on to win the game, Büskens
(playing in place of the suspended Böhme) played a delicate lob into
the run of Mpenza and the Belgian international served his partner in
attack Ebbe Sand his 8th goal with a precise cross, Sand only had to
put his forehead to the ball.
Schalke could have won even higher but Mpenza only struck the crossbar
on the counter attack. Schalke improve to 6-3-3 while Bayern fail to
capitalize on Hertha's loss and fall to 7-1-4 and even a very ordinary
2-1-3 on the road. [TL]
Attendance : 62,109 (sold out)
BREMEN 2-0 BOCHUM
Aílton 46
Pizarro 81
Bochum were without their lightning-quick counter attacking players
Bastürk and Peschel which was of course a huge advantage for the
all-out offensive Werder in this 6-point relegation bowl. It also
marked Bochum's 900th Bundesliga game.
Into the action : Eilts made a superb tackle to deny Drincic early
on. Aílton stung Van Duijnhoven's palms after destroying Dickhaut
at the other end. Stalteri had the best chance of the 1st half
when he blasted a short clearance just wide.
Werder had a rocket start into the 2nd 45 minutes : Van Duijnhoven
couldn't hold onto Bode's close-distance shot and Toni Maccaroni
put away the rebound 1 minute after the half time tea.
Van Duijnhoven denied Aílton a 2nd with great 1-on-1 saves twice
but was helpless when the brilliant Herzog, who had a very good
game in central midfield together with Wicky, picked out Bode on
the wing, Pizarro wide-openly brought his centre under control
and coolly fired past the 'keeper.
Rost made a great save against Dickhaut's drive to earn Werder
their first home win of the season without conceding a goal.
[TL]
Attendance : 27,525
11 NOVEMBER 2000
FRANKFURT 3-1 KAISERSLAUTERN
Reichenberger 44 Klos 83
Sobotzik 52
Fjørtoft 77
Red Devils' 'keeper Koch made three excellent saves against Fjørtoft
headers and a wicked Sobotzik free kick early on. Horst Heldt had a
regular goal disallowed for offside.
Under pressure FCK young man Hauck (22) first produced a candle and
then kicked fresh air to give Gebhardt plenty of space and time to
cross, "Baby K" made it 1-0 with a textbook header.
7 minutes into the 2nd half Heldt sold Strasser a dummy, faked his
way past Komljenovic and handed the ball off to Sobotzik who beat his
former teammate Georg Koch with a stiff shot from close distance.
Klose was 1-on-1 with Schur on the counter attack and had his shirt
tugged several times but refused to go down so instead of a red card
for Schur all he got was a weak shot at goal which Heinen easily saved.
A wonderful through pass by Heldt was finished off by Fjørtoft who
splashed between Klos and Koch before scooping the ball into the empty
net. Klos headed in the consolation from Djorkaeff's corner. [TL]
Attendance : 35,000
COTTBUS 2-1 STUTTGART
Miriuta 34 Soldo 16
Mátyus 86
Mátyus headed Miriuta's free kick against the crossbar. Hildebrand made
a tremendous save from Franklin. Against the run of play Soldo headed
in Balakov's free kick at 16'.
Miriuta played a 1-2 with Labak, the 2nd pass was a bit long so Carnell
tried the obvious shepherding the ball to Hildebrand who slept though so
Miriuta splashed in between and toe poked the equalizer over the
'keeper.
Franklin won a deserved penalty but Miriuta fired wide ! Dundee had a
legit claim for a penalty of his own turned down after being mowed down
by Sebõk.
The 2nd half offered little else until Mátyus surprisingly scored the
game winner after some ping pong from Helbig, Franklin and Hildebrand
in the box. [TL]
Attendance : 16,296
Ciao,
Tim
[SM] = Sven Mischkies
[TL] = Tim Leidecker
tim@milanmania.com
http://milanmania.com
http://soccer-europe.com
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