3 – Likely number of German top goalscorers over the past 10 years by season’s end. With Ibisevic’s injury cementing his tally at 18, it seems likely that Patrick Helmes (17), Mario Gomez or Grafite (14 each) will end up with title of Torschützenkönig. BUT if Grafite were to win, it’d increase the number of Brazilians at the top over that same time to 4.
3 (Bonus) – Goals Schalke need until they break even on goal differential on the all-time Bundesliga table. At 9th place they’re currently the highest ranked team with a negative differential, 4 spots ahead of Hertha Berlin.
5 – Andriy Voronin’s hat-trick was only the fifth of the season. The others were Claudio Pizarro’s against Frankfurt, Grafite’s against Cottbus, Patrick Helmes’ against Hannover 96, and Demba Ba’s against Stuttgart. (Szabolcs Huszti gets an honorable mention for missing a penalty but scoring a brace later in the game versus Gladbach.)
5 – Games Hoffenheim have now gone winless. Furthermore, over this stretch they’ve conceded 8 goals. That’s as many as in November, December and January combined (although the latter two were shortened by the winter break).
8 – Seasons since the 1991/1992 (the first year of a unified Bundesliga) that featured a champion that did not also lead the league in goal differential. More on the correlation between goal differential and table position in a future post.
10 – Games Wolfsburg have won at home after their 1-0 victory against Karlsruhe. Across all competitions this season that number increases to 13. In fact, their only defeat was a 2-5 setback to Bremen during a mid-week DFB Pokal match earlier this month.
12 – Games (only one of which ended nil-nil) that Karlsruhe have failed to score in which, unsurprisingly, tops all teams. You might not be surprised to learn that they are also the only club not to have won a game by 2 or more goals.
14 – Goals scored (out of 22) by ‘foreigners’ (including German-born players who represent other countries, e.g. Hamit Altintop). This isn’t something I pay particular attention to, considering the Bundesliga is an international league. Neverthless, 64%? Is that the norm?

Bundesliga Matchday 23 by the Numbers

Bundesliga Matchday 23 by the Numbers - World Soccer Talk

<div style="width: 459px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/31796784@N07/3073348385/"><div><figure class="external-image"><img loading="lazy" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3136/3073348385_4b30c850e5_o.jpg" alt="Ibisevic celebrates with Hoffenheim fans" width="449" height="298"></figure></div></a>Ibisevic celebrates with Hoffenheim fans</div>
Talented strikers from the former Yugoslavia are a valuable commodity in the Bundesliga this season. A wave of <a title="Serbia: " yugonostalgia"="" makes="" a="" comeback="" "="" href="http://www.deutsche-welle.de/dw/article/0,,2615235,00.html" target="_blank">Yugo-nostalgia</a> has spread across the German league and is following a trend of Soviet Chic in Germany.
Matchday 19 highlighted the dependence many Bundesliga squads have on their striking stalwarts from nations that once belong to the <a title="Wikipedia - Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslavia" target="_blank">Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia</a> – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia are all represented. Considered one-time compatriots, the <a title="Slovenia&apos;s golden age could return as Kek releases the owls" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/oct/14/slovenia-world-cup-blog" target="_blank">Slovenian Milivoje Novakovic</a> indulged himself in two goals playing alongside Serbia’s Nemanja Vucicevic. With his prim haircut and gangling gait, Novakovic eased his way to 12 Bundesliga goals in a 2-2 draw away to Eintracht Frankfurt. Meanwhile in Wolfsburg, Bosnian duo Zvjezdan Misimovic and Edin Dzeko combined to consign Bochum to a two-goal defeat. The opener was created by Misimovic, a nimble pass allowing an increasingly impressive Dzeko to strike from inside the area. Dzeko showed superb awareness for his second goal, this time craftily glancing a wayward Schäfer shot into the far corner.
The credibility of players from the region has certainly increased this season. The top scorer list is currently headed by <a title="BOSNIAN FOOTBALL CULTURE" href="http://bosnianfootballculture.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-bosnian-football-culture.html" target="_blank">Bosnian </a>Vedad Ibiševic with 18 goals. His absence for the rest of the season due to a knee injury may well cost Hoffenheim their fairytale title – though they do boast another attacking Bosnian player in Sejad Salihovic. Serbia’s Marko Pantelic is also fronting Hertha Berlin’s unlikely title challenge, having stayed with the club during a frosty transfer window. His two goals at the start of the Rückrunde were dedicated to his pregnant spouse, Pantelic playing his part in furthering an already impressive Serbian contingent in the German capital including Gojko Kacar.
Success for these players may simply be for pragmatic footballing reasons: Ibisevic, Dzeko and Novakovic are all well over 6 feet tall, relatively slim and with assured yet graceless touches. Too slight for the Premiership, too awkward for La Liga and Serie A. There are also a breed of innovative ‘Number 10’ types such as Misimovic, whilst not forgetting Croatian-born Mladen Petric or Ivan Rakitic. The classiest exports from the region are already filtering through to England: Luka Modric, Niko Kranjcar and <a title="Tosic is just one of Serbia&apos;s growing arsenal of young guns" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2008/dec/02/zoran-tosic-adem-ljalic-serbia-manchester-united" target="_blank">Zoran Tosic</a> have all found themselves at Premier League clubs. Germany may however offer more cultural affinity to the region than other leading European football leagues – often acting as a port of call for eastern European migrants. Even Die Mannschaft’s preferred forward line at the last two major tournaments featured a striker born in Poland and the other who appears to have split loyalties with his lineage.
Should this trend continue, the Bundesliga might expect to see a swell of strikers from the newly-formed <a title="The dangerous newcomers to the international party" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/sep/02/montenegro.europeanfootball" target="_blank">Montenegro </a>national team. It certainly seems as if the<a title="Bosnia | ‘Joyful fandom’ &amp; the flares of Sarajevo" href="http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog/2007/12/among-the-flambeaux-anthropology-joyful-fandom-and-the-flares-of-sarajevo/" target="_blank"> particular set of identities</a> in this region of South-East Europe fits the Bundesliga. However, Romanians and Bulgarians have not taken Germany by storm, suggesting a cultural rather than geographic&nbsp; distance. Whatever the reason, there’s enough evidence to show the way forward for Europe’s most exciting league.

Strikers from former Yugoslavia thrive in Bundesliga

Strikers from former Yugoslavia thrive in Bundesliga - World Soccer Talk

1-2-3 – Current ranking of Bochum, Cottbus, and Bielefeld on the “Anti-Fair-Play Table.” Here Bochum has a commanding lead thanks to their 33(!) yellows in 12 games. This trio tops another table as well, but this one’s about “Anti-Results.” All three are currently in the relegation zone. Coincidence? Probably not considering Anti-Fair-Play cellar dwellers Leverkusen and Hoffenheim top the real table.
4 – Times I’ve inadvertently clicked on a link about a “WM” (Weltmeisterschaft – any world championship, really, but also the World Cup) only to discover, yet again, that it’s chess. And while it’s the third largest sporting event this year, host Germany has no shot or so I’ve read. Just be glad I haven’t mixed up my Chess Bundesliga with, well, our Bundesliga: “Arsenal snap up young Norwegian attacking starlet Magnus Carlsen from Bundesliga-leading OSG Baden-Baden.” Oh dear.
7 – Players suspended for the next matchday. Robert Tesche, Jiri Stajner, Robert Kovac and Mesut Özil all will begin 3 game suspensions for red cards. Nico Herzig, Patrick Ochs, and Hanno Balitsch have accumulated 5 yellows which entitles them to a one game vacation.
9 – Points Franck Ribery has directly earned for Bayern from 3 Game-winning goals since returning to the starting lineup against Bochum on October 4th. Including the game against Schalke, he’s been directly responsible for wins against Bielefeld (with the decisive second goal, Podolski’s effort later on just beautified the scoreline) and Frankfurt. They’ve won 16 of 18 possible points with Ribery back from injury and shot up the table to a respectable position.
13 – Goals that Hoffenheim’s Ibisevic scored this season, even after drawing a blank in 1-0 defeat to Hertha on Sunday. What’s so impressive about that? Beyond the 13:12 goals-to-games ratio, it’s where he’d rank among the top goalscorers of seasons past. After about a third of the season, here’s where he’d finish among the last 10 season’s final goalscorers table:
07/08 – 6th 
06/07 – 9th 
05/06 – 8th 
04/05 – 10th 
03/04 – 10th 
02/03 – 10th 
01/02 – 8th 
00/01 – 8th 
99/00 – 5th 
98/99 – 5th
45 – Minutes that Köln wishes games would last. If they only played the first half, they’d be sitting pretty in 2nd place. Cottbus, though, would stand to gain even more. They’d move all the way up to 7th! A game of two halves indeed…
47 – Hoffenheim’s current position on the Bundesliga’s eternal table. Barring a complete meltdown they’ll almost certainly finish highest among one-season participants. They’ll almost certainly top a few two-season teams as well. The question is, where will they end? It’s highly improbable, but not impossible, that they could pull ahead of SpVgg Unterhaching or Stuttgarter Kickers who have 79 and 77 points all-time in the Bundesliga. Assuming they manage this feat they’d have moved up 10 spots and 20% of the table in one season.
398 – Minutes that Leverkusen went without conceding a goal until Antonio da Silva’s 37th minute strike on Saturday. Not only was this his first league goal of the campaign, but it marks the first time in more than a month that Rene Adler has had to fish the ball out of his own net (although he got more practice on the day). In fact, Leverkusen were only a few moments away from not conceding a goal the entire month of October. Only Voronin, with an 89th minute game-winner back on the 4th, infiltrated an otherwise vigilant Leverkusen rearguard.
—
Has it really been that long since I’ve posted? Well, for that I apologize. But living in Washington, DC around election time is both exciting and hectic. This isn’t my first election in the city, but it is the most enthusiastically received one I’ve seen here. It’s easy to get caught up in things.

Bundesliga Matchday 12 by the Numbers

Bundesliga Matchday 12 by the Numbers - World Soccer Talk

<a href="https://worldsoccertalk.cms.futbolsitesnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/bundesliga.jpg"><div><figure class="image"><img loading="lazy" src="https://media.worldsoccertalk.com/wp-content/2015/01/bundesliga-600x338-600x338.webp" alt="bundesliga" width="600" height="338" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-126420" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px"></figure></div></a>
While this is expected to become a weekly column, I have decided to hand out the first Weekly XI based on the cumulative efforts of the first three weeks.&nbsp; I will use a 3-4-3 formation for my picks.
GK: Mathias Schober (Schalke 04) – The veteran backup has taken over during Manuel Neuer’s injury and has given up the least goals in the league. And he’s done so with Bordon looking suspect.
DF: Heiko Westermann (Schalke 04) – He’s fills in for Rafinha as well as he did for Pander last year. Two goals and solid defense make him the most versatile defender in the league. He might be Schalke’s answer to their goalie problems.
DF: Neven Subotic (Borussia Dortmund) – 19 year old defenders aren’t meant to be this good.
DF: Friedrich (Hertha Berlin) – An iffy penalty on Ze Roberto and a failure to collapse on Lahm last week, should not take away from his brilliant start to the season.
MF: Kuba (Borussia Dortmund) – He has been the offensive catalyst of Dortmund’s revival.
MF: Marin (Borussia Mönchengladbach) – I can’t say enough about this kid.
MF: Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich) – Has taken the leadership of the team from Van Bommel. In addition he has been the driving force for the Bavarians during Ribery’s injury.
MF: Ashkan Dejegah (Wolfsburg) – Relentless and tenacious, he has been Wolfsburg’s best performer during their solid start.
FW: Vedad Ibisevic (TSG Hoffenheim) – Any questions I had about his and Bo’s ability to adapt to the Bundesliga have been answered with loads of goals.
FW: Artur Wichniarek (Arminia Bielefeld) – He’s looking like a one man team.
FW: Patrick Helmes (Bayer Leverkusen) – It was tough to choose Helmes over Köln’s Novakovic, but Helmes’ abilities to create and hold have made him instrumental to Bayer’s start.

The Bundesliga XI

The Bundesliga XI - World Soccer Talk

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