There were draws and drama at the top of the Bundesliga as Hoffenheim tied nine-man Schalke to take the unofficial title of "fall champion" at the season's half way point, and Bayern Munich and
Bayer Leverkusen were both thwarted by last-minute equalizers. It was another bad day for
Michael Bradley, substituted after an hour as his bottom-placed
Borussia Moenchengladbach side lost again, 2-1 at short-handed Borussia Dortmund.
Schalke went 1-0 up at leader Hoffenheim through a
first-half
Gerald Asamoah goal, then were reduced to 10 men after
Jermaine Jones was given a dubious second yellow
card for an arguably clean, and certainly not ill-intentioned, tackle. His teammate
Orlando Engelaar was so furious that he also saw yellow, which later
became a red too for foul play. In the meantime,
Selim Teber's superb, curling free-kick had brought Hoffenheim level. Despite a frenetic finale, Schalke
held on for the point.
"We didn't let Hoffenheim have the space that they normally like to have," said Schalke coach
Fred Rutten, something
his fellow coaches might like to take note of in the second half of the season. Jones's dismissal was wrong, but Engelaar's justified, he added, though said nothing about his two assistant coaches
who were also sent to the stands. Hoffenheim's
Ralf Rangnick said his team wanted the three points so much that they were "almost arrogant, and I didn't much
like that. I'm happy to be in first place, but I'd have been much happier with the two extra points."
Bayern, which would have gone top with a win, also had to make do with a point
when Stuttgart's midfielder
Sami Khedira scored in stoppage time at the end of each half, the second a corking volley from a poorly cleared corner to save
the game. In between,
Tim Borowski and
Luca Toni, with his ninth goal of the season and his sixth in six games,
scored for Bayern, who also lost Italian defender
Massimo Oddo to a straight red card for violent play.
"It was an exciting, gripping derby,"
said Bayern coach
Juergen Klinsmann. "All in all, I'm happy with what the team has achieved in the past three months." Stuttgart coach
Markus Babbel, unbeaten after three games in charge, was also happy that his team showed "passion and resolve right up until the end. But I'm not completely happy
with the result, because we had enough chances to win."
Lowly Cottbus leveled at Bayer Leverkusen with the last touch of the game through a header from Chinese substitute
Jiayi Shao after
Simon Rolfes had given the home side the lead on 77 minutes. That result dropped Leverkusen down to
fifth, three points off the lead, as they were leapfrogged by Hertha Berlin, 4-0 winners over Karlsruhe, and Hamburg, which beat Eintracht Frankfurt on a superb diving header from
Mladen Petric, his eighth of the season and his 14th in all competitions.
There was a win, a tie and a loss for the Bundesliga's three Americans.
The win and the loss came in the same game, as
Neven Subotic played through for a Borussia Dortmund team that held on to beat
Bradley's last-place Borussia Moenchengladbach, 2-1, despite being down to 10 men after Hungarian midfielder
Tamas Hajnal's red card after just
38 minutes. Bradley was subbed out just before the hour with his side 2-0 down. Dortmund goes into the winter break in sixth place.
Steve Cherundolo returned
to the Hannover team, but they could only tie, 1-1, at home to Arminia Bielefeld, leaving them just four points above the relegation zone.
Volatile Bremen beat Wolfsburg 2-1, and
both teams end the first half of the season on 27 points in eight and ninth place respectively. Bochum, level on points at the bottom with Moenchengladbach, lost 2-1 at home to Cologne.
The Bundesliga is finely poised for an exciting second half of the season when it resumes Jan. 30, with just three points separating the top five clubs. A number of teams have adopted
positive, attacking philosophies that have made the league far more entertaining to watch than either the English Premier League or the Italian Serie A. Only the technically superior Spanish Liga
comes close to matching its average of just over three goals per game.
Goals scored Dec. 12-14: 24 in nine games (2.67 per game)
Goals scored in 2008-09 season: 462 in 153 games (3.02 per game