BAYER SMASH KÖLN IN IMPRESSIVE FASHION
Leverkusen come from behind to score four for the fourth time in
four home games. Meanwhile Bayern hang on to their two point lead
at the top of the table with a 'worked out' home victory against
bogey team Stuttgart. Schalke also keeps the pace against the
"other team from Munich" -- 1860.
Dortmund and Hertha slip, 'Lautern and Wolfsburg capitalize.
Werder Bremen continues their positive trend with a hard-fought
draw at the Westfalenstadion. Frankfurt wins their 2nd consecutive
game under interim-coach Dohmen while the rope around Stuttgart's
and especially Bochum's neck becomes dangerously tight...
9 FEBRUARY 2001
FRANKFURT 1-0 COTTBUS
Heldt 65
Frankfurt has to give kudos to their new (and old) n°1 Oka Nikolov
and playmaker Horst Heldt for earning them the three points from
this game: Nikolov made three stunning saves from Reghecampf and
Labak before Heldt received the ball from Kryszalowicz inside the
box and scored the lone goal of the evening with vision and a nice
scoop shot into the far corner, his 5th goal of the season, first
from open play. Cottbus needs points away from home if they want to
survive. [TL]
Attendance : 20,000
10 FEBRUARY 2001
HAMBURG 3-0 BOCHUM
Yeboah 16
Butt 34 (Pen)
Barbarez 38
Just to explain how important this game was for us :
Before this game we had lost 10 of our last 11 (the 2 UEFA-Cup matches
against Roma included), we only managed a win at home against Cottbus
and didn't play well in this game, either. There were some reasons for
this losing streak before the winterbreak: Lots of injuries, exhausted
players and sometimes a bit bad luck. Now after the winterbreak we had a
bad start too: We lost at home against 10 players of Hertha (and played
very badly) and away in Bremen (where we played much better than
against Hertha but were a bit unlucky).
This losing streak led to a big drop in the table, so that we are now to
fight against relegation. Before this weekend I was sure that we would
have no problem to stay in the Bundesliga, but with a loss or a draw
against Bochum (the IMHO worst team in the league) we could have
dropped into severe trouble : We have some difficult games to play now
(e.g. in Dortmund and Schalke) and the psychological effect could have
been devastating.
The game :
We played our 3-4-3 as usual without surprises in the squad (Butt -
Hertzsch, Hoogma, Ujfaluši - Kovac, Groth, Hollerbach, Barbarez -
Mahdavikia, Yeboah, Heinz) while Bochum missed their best player
(Yildiray Bastürk, AMC, who may come to Hamburg next season).
After just 5 minutes Yeboah scored from Barbarez' header, but the ref
gave a freekick to Bochum because he thought Barbie had fouled his
opponent (wrong decision, IMHO). We played on in our offensive style,
but had only small chances while Bochum got a better one after 11 mins :
Peschel was through on our left side (Hertzsch kicked air instead of the
ball and dropped down so that Peschel's way was free) but Butt saved
with his left foot.
Then the funniest scene I've seen in football for some time : Kia threw
the ball to Bochum deep in their half on their left side, they kicked it
forward to Kovac who tried to play it to Hertzsch but overhit it a bit.
Hertzsch ran after the ball and managed to get it right before the
sideline, just to kick it very high in front of Bochums area. There 3
players tried to get the ball and in the end it was Colding who kicked
it - right on Fahrenhorst from whom it deflected high into the area
where Fahrenhorst arrived first and headed it - to Tony, who was about
10m in front of the goal and behind the defense. Tony stopped the ball
out of the air (and fooled a defender by doing this - the defender ran
past him and completely missed the ball) just to lose it to Reis, who
tried to kick it away but hit Tony's head - from where it dropped behind
Reis, who turned around just to see Tony's foot coming from behind and
kicking the ball into the net. :-))
Err... Forget about this description - there's probably now a movie of
this scene at
http://www.sport1.de/cgi-bin/sport1.pl?bereich=Fussball&bereich2=/
Fussball/Bundesliga&url=/pub/Fussball/Bundesliga/Spieltage/VideoAktuell
and
http://www.bundesliga.de/en/bundesliga/2000/21/01250/nachbericht.shtml?
RealPlayer or M$ Media Player needed. :-(
About 10 mins later Heinz crossed from the left but Barbie's header hit
the post (or maybe he hit the post that holds the net behind the goal?).
Then Heinz dribbled himself through Bochums right side until he was free
in front of the goal, but then shot wide from a tight angle. A moment
later Ujfaluši played Barbie through, Barbie ran past the keeper but was
then fouled by a defender (no red card, despite of the empty net :-()
and Butt converted the penalty. A few minutes later Barbie headed in
Kia's cross to decide this game.
In the second half we dropped our pace and relied mostly on counter
attacks. Still Bochum couldn't do much and so the only remarkable scenes
were Barbie's header (after a Groth cross) at the post and Peschel
trying to kick the ball out of the stadium from 11m.
I'm quite optimistic now, we'll stay down until day 30 at least due to
our difficult programme and the lack of points at the moment, but I
don't fear relegation as it seems that the team has found back to its
game. A special note about Butt and Tony: Both had a crap first half of
the season, but both seem to come back to normal form. :-) [SM]
Attendance : 31,827
KAISERSLAUTERN 4-0 UNTERHACHING
H Koch 8
Haber 18 (og)
Klose 22
Strasser 79
Offensive defender Harry "Adonis" Koch gave 'Lautern the early lead
with a thumping header from Bjelica's corner. Haber doubled the lead
10 minutes later when he attempted to direct away Strasser's volley
but instead heeled the ball into his own net. Grassow weakly tried
to head a throughball back to his 'keeper, Klose splashed in between,
Grassow hurled him down, red card. "Air" Klose then rose incredibly
high to powerfully head in Strasser's cross -- all this happened
within the first 22 minutes !
Ratinho, starting his first match this season after being slowed down
by a rash of injuries, struck the post after a nice individual effort.
Then once again Harry Koch and Bjelica teamed up, the curly-haired
defender headed the free kick of "Croatia's Footballer of the Year"
against the crossbar. Marschall let Adzic's centre run through his
legs, Strasser unmarkedly tapped in the 4-0 at the far post. Straube
('Haching) almost scored the 5-0 but his header came back off the post.
[TL]
Red Card : Grassow 20 (Unterhaching)
Attendance : 36,276
HERTHA 1-3 WOLFSBURG
Tretschok 74 (Pen) Juskowiak 37, 50
Schnoor 55
Simunic gifted Wolfsburg two huge chances early in the game with two
terrible hospital passes, good for him they remained unused. Still it
was his slack marking which allowed Juskowiak (of all people) to give
Wolfsburg the shock lead (Wolves had never scored a goal in a BuLi
game against Hertha at the Olympiastadion before) with a header from
Munteanu's free kick. Sebescen hammered a running 25-meter volley
against the post shortly before half time.
Hertha came back out of the locker room and were still optimistic
about equalizing when once again it was the big Pole who gave them
a cold shower by pushing Kühbauer's centre over the line. Sebescen
then headed another free kick from Munteanu to Schnoor who poked in
the 0-3 from close range. Juskowiak absolutely had to score his 3rd
of the game but instead of taking the 'keeper out one-on-one he
decided to weakly shoot past the goal from outside the area.
Schnoor caused a penalty by dragging down new signing Zilic who made
a refreshing home debut, Tretschok with the consolation from the spot.
An abysmal Hertha failed to capitalize on Dortmund's eventual slipping
thus failing to take over the all-important fouth spot in the standings.
[TL]
Attendance : 36,957
SCHALKE 2-0 1860 MÜNCHEN
Mpenza 50, 64
Schalke, after being busted open in Cottbus last weekend, sovereignly
scored a 3-0 victory in Stuttgart (!) midweek to reach the final of the
DFB-Pokal where they will meet the leader of the Regionalliga Nord --
"Eisen" Union Berlin on May 26th.
In this game they had to face the "Münchner Löwen" who had been a tough
team to beat for them in the past. Even not as white hot as against
Stuttgart the "Knappen" did well: Möller had the biggest chance of the
1st 30 minutes when his free kick struck the crossbar. Riseth was sent
off for an emergency brake on Mpenza shortly before the break.
Into the 2nd half: Jentzsch fantastically saved another dead-on Möller
free kick but couldn't hold onto the ball, Van Kerckhoven drilled it
into the middle and Mpenza broke the scoring deadlock with a diving
header. Asamoah ran onto a throughball, cut the ball back to Mpenza
who thoughtfully made it 2-0 with a well-placed shot into the left
bottom corner. [TL]
Red Card : Riseth 42 (1860 München)
Attendance : 33,705
BAYERN MÜNCHEN 1-0 STUTTGART
Élber 8
Idiotic VfB coach Rangnick somehow managed to leave last weeks 3-goal
debutant Adhemar on the bench at the beginning - how utterly stupid!
Bayern rested some of their stars as well because of their upcoming
midweek clash with Spartak Moscow, the most prominent being the in-form
Mehmet Scholl.
And the "beautiful FCB" made the music from the beginning, Jeremies,
the best player on the pitch, beat the offside trap by spreading the
ball wide to Effenberg, Paulo Sergio let Effe's centre run through to
the white-hot Élber who smashed his first goal against his old club
high into the net.
The 41,000 at the Olympiastadion could have basically left after
Élber's goal because there wasn't much more to enjoy. The most notable
scenes included last weeks 3 goal, 3 assist man Ganea going back to
his old tricks and striking Kahn in the nutsack twice from close range
as well as Rui Marques blocking a certain goal from Paulo Sergio. [TL]
Attendance : 41,000
LEVERKUSEN 4-1 KÖLN
Lúcio 57, 90 Lottner 8 (Pen)
Ballack 65
Neuville 78
Leverkusen reject and FC captain Lottner gave the visitors from the
other side of the Rhine the lead from the penalty spot after Timm
dived outside the area. Leverkusen proceeded to whine and complain
to the referee for 50 minutes until Lúcio took his heart into his
hands, unstoppably cruised forward, swapped passes with Kirsten and
fired a left-footed blast past Bade -- what a goal, I have not seen
a goal which was scored through so much sheer will and still was so
technically brilliant in a long, long time. To be honest: Watching
this goal almost made me cry... :)
Playmaker Michael Ballack completely turned the game around 8 mins
later when he beat Christian Timm to Zé Roberto's corner. Oliver
Neuville also chipped in with his 11th of the season after playing
give-and-go with Kirsten-successor Berbatov before Lúcio put the
icing on a World Class performance with his 2nd goal of the game
from a goalmouth scramble. Let me just harp on about this Lúcio for
just a second: Awesome tackler, unbeatable header, great passer,
sublime technique for a defender and goalscorer ! This is World
Class. Period. [TL]
Attendance : 22,500 (sold out)
11 FEBRUARY 2001
FREIBURG 0-0 ROSTOCK
Rostock successfully tried to take the pace out of the game.
Still Georgian internationals Kobiashvili and Tskitishvili had
chances which would have justified 3 points for the home side.
In the 2nd half the entertainment value of the game went from
so-so to AWOL. Hard-earned point for Rostock, their first ever
in Freiburg. [TL]
Attendance: 25,000 (sold out)
DORTMUND 0-0 BREMEN
Dortmund made the pace, racked up 11-0 corners within the first 30
minutes and always became dangerous when the light-footed Rosický
speeded things up. Bobic whom Krstajic simply couldn't get a hold
of had a "private duel" with Frank Rost which the Werder 'keeper
won through brilliant reflexes.
Werder, well-organized with good depth in midfield, also managed
to shut down the wings and even had a couple of promising counter
attacks by Bode and Pizarro. In the 2nd half Dortmund couldn't keep
the pressure up and turned the ball over far too often allowing
Werder to take home a point and remain unbeaten in 2001. [TL]
Attendance : 62,000
Ciao,
Tim
[TL] = Tim Leidecker
[SM] = Sven Mischkies
http://milanmania.com
http://soccer-europe.com
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