Bundesliga matchday 14 preview: Tight at top and bottom

It’s the week after the crazy 4-4 Revierderby, it’s the week after Jupp Heynckes lost his first game in charge of Bayern and it’s the week after Hannover got smashed 3-0 by Hamburg.

Hamburg open the matchday (8.30 on Friday) when they travel all the way across Germany to Freiburg who finally won another game last weekend. This is a huge chance for either club. Hamburg could put 5 points between them and the relegation places and Freiburg could jump out of them and surpass Hamburg if they manage to win their third game of this season. Especially for Freiburg this is the kind of game they are really going to want to win if they wanna stay up.

Saturday afternoon (3.30) features a couple of interesting games. Bayern host (as of late) struggling Hannover in a bid to recover the form they had before the game against Gladbach because Leipzig is not going to sleep and they have a chance to catch up with Bayern when they travel to Bayern. Everyone’s favourite crisis-team Borussia Dortmund are on the road to Leverkusen.who are yet to lose a home game. Peter Bosz’s reign at Borussia Dortmund is more or less over but it’s hard to find a good replacement right now fans have to be content with him even though that might mean dropping out of any European places on Saturday. Bremen host Stuttgart and they need the points to catch up with 15th. Mainz also play against Augsburg in a mid-table battle.

For the evening game (6.30) Schalke play against Köln. Köln have scored four goals this season. That is – how we all know – the exact amount of goals Schalke have scored and conceded last week. Anything but a Schalke win would a huge surprise considering that Schalke’s defence has been impeccable apart from that game against Dortmund last week. Would this finally be the end of Peter Stöger? We don’t know but they are more or less relegated already so sacking him couldn’t fix anything.

Sunday (3.30) starts with a mid-table clash between Hertha and Frankfurt. A win could put either in and around the Europa League places and set them up for a surprise Europa League challenge in what is most likely going to be a very tight league until the very end – just like in the last couple of years.

The weekend action is concluded when Gladbach are called into action at Wolfsburg (6.00). Gladbach are in scintillating form and Wolfsburg are still struggling and they need points to not make last season happen again. However, this is not the kind of game where they are likely to get more than one point at max considering that Gladbach have turned their form away from home around lately. This is also a great chance for them to get in a good position ahead of the game against Schalke next week.