Stiff competition hits Bundesliga as it heads for the break

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This article was published 21/12/2019 (2429 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What’s this? Could it be? A title race in the Bundesliga?

As Germany’s top-flight schedule reaches its halfway point, concluding the Hinrude, or autumn championship, the table’s five leading clubs have just five points between them. Neither Bayern Munich nor Borussia Dortmund can enter the self-explanatory month-long Winterpause as Herbstmeister, which means the division will have a first non-Klassiker mid-season champion in a decade — Bayer Leverkusen last breaking up the duopoly in 2009.

RB Leipzig and Borussia Monchengladbach enter match-week 17 knotted in first place with 34 points, although Leipzig could briefly go top when it hosts 10th-place Augsburg this morning (8:30 a.m.), three hours before ‘Gladbach visits 13th-ranked Hertha Berlin (11:30 a.m., Sportsnet World). But could one of them actually go on to lift the shield? No doubt, they’d both prefer to keep right on playing through the holidays and early January, what with the momentum they’ve picked up in recent weeks. Last year’s Dortmund side would have, as well. Herbstmeister for the first time in eight years, it won only three of its first seven matches of the Ruckrunde, or spring championship, and conceded a seventh straight title to Bayern.

Bayern, at least in recent times, is the only club that seems impervious to the sudden halt of Winterpause. And if it’s once again able to stride comfortably into the season’s second half, it’d surely have to be considered a strong favourite to retain the shield, yet again.

But Bayern isn’t the story at the moment. Neither are fourth-place Dortmund nor surprising challengers Schalke, currently defending a four-point lead over Freiburg. No, this Hinrude is about Leipzig and ‘Gladbach, the upstart franchisees and a former Bundesliga heavyweight long removed from serious relevancy.

RB Leipzig, as it happens, is probably better liked outside Germany than within it. It has only existed as a club since 2009, when Austrian energy drink company Red Bull launched it in the fifth tier of German football. Between 2013 and 2016, it won three promotions and finished runners-up to Bayern in its maiden Bundesliga campaign of 2016-17, all the while drawing widespread criticism for perceived artificiality and occasional in-stadium protests against a restrictive membership policy that continues to make a mockery of the league’s 50+1 rule intended to ensure members hold majority interest in clubs.

All that said — and it’s a lot to be said, rightfully and for sure — Leipzig is a delight to watch on the pitch. It’s a very strange tension, unique in elite-level European football. On the one hand is a sporting entity that has broken all the rules in its ascendancy. On the other is an innovative coaching staff and some of the brightest young stars on the continent.

Julian Nagelsmann, just 32, is an innovator. He is one of the few European managers to use the Footbonaut training machine, which helps players improve their ball skills and reaction times. He also employs drones to record practices and has installed a giant video board, or wall, on one of the club’s training pitches. On the recruitment side of things, football intellectual Ralf Rangnick scours the world for talent. As a result, Leipzig’s current squad boasts goal-scoring sensation Timo Werner, up-and-coming defenders Ibrahima Konate and Dayot Upamecano, exciting winger Yussuf Poulsen and highly rated striker Patrik Schick, presently on loan from Roma.

No wonder RB Leipzig is not only contending for the Bundesliga, but is into the last 16 of both the Champions League and DFB-Pokal.

Borussia Monchengladbach, meanwhile, had been holding down first place in the Bundesliga for the better part of two months, until Leipzig pulled level with it on points. But where its Saxon rivals roar through matches with attacking zeal, the North Rhine-Westphalians edge their opponents by playing smart defence and launching timely counter-attacks. No individual stats leaders here, although the club’s 18 goals against represent the second-most austere defensive record on the ledger.

Marco Rose, who happens to be a former RB Leipzig boss, took over as Foals manager ahead of this season. He made numerous changes for Wednesday’s match with Paderborn after a 2-1 loss at Wolfsburg last weekend. But France Under-21 international Marcus Thuram, 22-year-old Switzerland striker Breel Embolo and veteran midfielder Christoph Kramer will likely be restored to the XI to face Hertha Berlin.

A model of consistency, ‘Gladbach has not won more than four matches in a row so far this term and has yet to go more than one match without picking up points. Given that it has already been eliminated from both the Europa League and DFB-Pokal, it’ll also be able to pour all its energy into making a sustained title challenge during the Ruckrunde. It’s also worth noting that ‘Gladbach was Herbstmeister in four of its five title-winning seasons during the 1970s.

But it surely can’t sustain this type of form after Winterpause. Or can it? And could Leipzig actually lift the shield only 11 years into its existence? Such are the talking points ahead of the Bundesliga’s mid-season break, before Bayern and Dortmund inevitably attack the top of the table next month.

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