die Tabelle lügen nicht! (Bundesliga Week 12)

Edin Dzeko Against Cottbus

1. Bayer Leverkusen
The subtitle to their season should be “how we got to the top with a crap defense”. They conceded goals by a misdirect from the wall on a free kick, allowing Tim Sebastian to waltz freely on another and letting 5’9 Iashvilli outjump a defender. If it weren’t for Adler’s saves, they could have lost this game. Half their back four are loanees. Perhars they should replace the other two with loans in January.

2. TSG Hoffenheim
And now you know why the Cleveland Brown’s always blow chunks. Brown and Orange are meant for leaves, not uniforms.

3. Bayern Munich
Well things seem to back on track. Oh except Lucio wants to leave. And Toni Kroos. And Ze Roberto (to the MLS at that). And Van Bommel. And Schweinsteiger. And Van Buyten. And Podolski. It seems the only person that wants to stay is the only person they want to get rid of: Michael Rensing.

4. Hamburg
Will Frank Rost’s five saves in this matched have massive repercussions at season’s end for the Dinosaurs? If any of their summer signing such as Thiago Neves, Alex Silva, Janssen and Pitroipa ever start playing, I think they will.

5. Hertha Berlin
Who would have thought in August that HBS beating a promotion side at home would be one of the biggest shocks in Europe? Not the guy mentioned in 11, that’s for sure.

6. Schalke 04
You know if Rutten replaced Kuranyi, Altintop, Farfan and Rakatic/Sanchez with DM’s he could play his dream formation of 4-6-0 with six holding mids.

7. Wolfsburg
Sure Grafite scores his first hat-trick which he dedicates to his father; however, I can’t help but feel that the real story at Wolfsburg is Edin Dzeko’s constant diving. He makes Ronaldo look like a man’s man.

8. Köln
5 wins in 7 for the one-time powerhouse has them above Dortmund, Bremen and Stuttgart, fighting for a shot at Europa. Has any team taken better advantage of corners this season?

9. Borussia Dortmund
Not a good week to display a Croatian flag in Dortmund. After getting scorched by HSV’s Olic and Petric, Robert Novac gets a straight red card post match for complaining. This means that they go into this week’s game with a threadbare back line with Hummels already MIA.

10. Werder Bremen
Are you kidding me? I go away for a few weeks and Thomas Schaaf, the man who has been at Werder Bremen longer than I have been alive, is under pressure. The man who has been around for three of their four titles in some capacity; the man without a defense; the man who loses his best player each year to FC Bayer; the man with no consistency from Diego, Ozil or Frings; yet the man that has them mid-table is somehow to blame for a slow start? Sure they suck in Europe. They always suck in Europe. That’s part of the gig. If they fire Schaaf, I will lose my faith in the Bundesliga.

11. Stuttgart
Next week Bundesliga Talk will feature an exclusive interview with the last known person to be unaware of Mario Gomez’s desire to leave the Swabians……oh scratch that, I have been informed that he has just slipped back into his coma.

12. Eintracht Frankfurt
If Jens Lehmann quits because of what he perceives as a missed call in this game, I will buy an Eagles shirt with Liberopoulos’ name, hang in on my wall and worship it like it’s Baal and this is 499 B.C.

13. Hannover 96
Mike Hanke scores in the league for the first time since last April. Oh, it was an own goal. Hanke is a very streaky forward. But this is the kind of purple patch that will give Dieter Hecking an ulcer.

14. Borussia Monchengladbach
Guess who is out of the relegation zone after Hans Meyer’s 50th Bundesliga victory? 50 victories! No wonder Hans Meyers has so much relegation experience. But this week is all about Marko Marin’s first Bundesliga goal, which was a superbly taken free kick. It’s the first of many more, such as his second half brace.

15. Karlsruhe
They had a spirited comeback against table topping Bayer at the weekend, but let’s give credit to one of the hardest working, yet most overlooked players in the Bundesliga: Alexander Iashvili. The diminutive Georgian scored the leveler but he has been working his tail off all season and nobody is more upset than Schalke’s Kobiashvili, who once felt unique.

16. Bochum
That’s now just one win in 12. That’s the kind of form that will guarantee you a playoff game come season’s end. Now that St. Pauli is contesting the third spot in the Zweite, I suddenly don’t like this new rule.

17. Arminia Bielefeld
This week’s winner of the “Mario Gomez’s You Can’t Friggin’ Possibly Miss That” award goes to Artur Wichniarek.

18. Energie Cottbus
You’ve been Lutzed, as in Lutz Wagner. Talk about the victims of poor referring decisions! First he calls off the Cottbus opener by Marco Kurth for obstruction of the goalkeeper’s line of site. Since when is this a law? Rangelov was onside and at least 2 meters away from Diego Benaglio. But if this wasn’t bad enough, Edin Dzeko falls due to a strong breeze as the ball is rolling out of play, and he awards the Wolves a penalty. Wagner is fast becoming Germany’s equivalent to an English ref.