Bundesliga Returns – The Home Stretch

Football fans have something to cheer at last. Live football is finally here after a 2-month gap with Bundesliga slated to resume on 16^th May. Bundesliga has the best in-stadium environment with the highest spectator attendance across the world and playing behind closed doors is not ideal. However, you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs and the prospect of live football even if only on TV is soothing. This post looks at the title contenders as the Bundesliga enters its home stretch.

Bayern Munich: The Favourites

With the last 7 titles under their belt, Bayern Munich remain favourites to make it 8 in a row even though they haven’t been as dominant this season as the previous years. Bayern endured one of the worst starts of this century this season losing 4 of its first 14 games. Their coach Nico Kovac was sacked and replaced by Hansi Flick. However, under Hansi Flick, Bayern has seen a major revival going unbeaten in the last 11 games and winning 10 of those; moving from 4^th position to top of the league. Bayern remain the team to beat scoring the highest number of goals (73) and conceding the least goals (26) in the league. Robert Lewandowski with a league-high 25 goals looks set for a hat-trick of golden boot awards. Serge Gnabry is finally doing justice to his potential having scored 11 goals and 9 assists. Thiago Alcantara has been his usual solid self while young left-back Alphonso Davies has been a revelation with his strong performances. While the forced break has definitely broken Bayern’s momentum, come 27^th June, it is difficult to imagine anyone else at the top of the charts.

Borussia Dortmund: The Challengers

Borussia Dortmund had frittered away a 6-point lead at the half-way mark last season finishing second just 2 points below Bayern. Having missed out last year by a whisker, Dortmund would be looking to finish a notch higher. While Captain Marco Reus remains the backbone of this exciting Dortmund team, the young talent at hand – Jadon Sancho (14 goals and 15 assists), Thorgan Hazard & Achraf Hakimi (8 goals and 20 assists) and Erling Haaland (9 goals and 1 assist in 8 games) is reminiscent of the successful Dortmund team of 2010-12. While the combination of the experienced Matts Hummels and youngster Dan Axel Zagadou at the centre of defence sounds enticing, an inconsistent defence remains Dortmund’s key weakness. Dortmund have been comprehensively beaten by Bayern this season but Lucien Favre’s side has a chance to take revenge and cut down that 4-point gap at the top when they host Bayern later this month. With Dortmund’s young brigade in demand all over Europe, the prospect of another team break-up looks inevitable and a title win this year would be the best farewell gift the likes of Sancho can give Die Schwarzgelben.

RB Leipzig – The Dark Horses

A point below Dortmund is the up and rising RB Leipzig. The last time Bayern didn’t win the Bundesliga, RB Leipzig were in the fourth tier of German football and now they are consistently challenging at the top with Champions League qualification largely considered a given. This is a reflection of the big leap RB Leipzig have made. RB Leipzig lost some momentum going into the forced break but they have been largely solid throughout the season. Timo Werner has continued in beast mode scoring 21 goals and giving 7 assists and this is likely his last season here given he is on the radar of most European biggies. Youngster Christopher Nkunku seems another exciting prospect from the RB stable with 4 goals and 12 assists this season. RB Leipzig has been especially stubborn in defence having conceded just 26 goals (lowest in the league) with 8 clean sheets. Defender Dayot Upamecano and goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi have been stand-out performers at the back. RB Leipzig have largely an easy run-in going into the home stretch with the home game against Dortmund, the one difficult game. Julian Nagelsmann’s side will fancy their chances of finishing at the top concluding a 11-year journey which began in 2009 with Red Bull buying the playing license of fifth-tier SSV Markranstadt.

Borussia Monchengladbach & Bayer Leverkusen – The Pretenders

Borussia Monchengladbach lost steam after a spectacular start to the season which saw them top the league for quite a few weeks. Marco Rose’s side also has had a memorable comeback win over Bayern Munich this season. Youngsters Marcus Thuram and Dennis Zakaria have had eye-catching performances and are already on the radar of big European clubs. Reaching the summit looks tough but Monchengladbach will be happy with a Champions League spot.

Bayer Leverkusen have come back strongly in the last dozen games of the season moving to 5^th position from a lowly 10th. They have been boosted by some solid performances by Moussa Diaby and Lucas Alario but the stand-out performer has been Kai Havertz who is already rumoured to be headed to Bayern Munich next season. Peter Bosz remains a man on a mission having a point to prove after losing his job at Dortmund 2 years back and a Champions League place would be considered a success.

Bengaluru FC's ISL journey

As I am a big fan of Bengaluru FC (BFC), this blog post is dedicated to the ups and downs in their 3-year ISL journey. In 2017, BFC exited the I- league and entered ISL and the last 3 years can be considered quite successful, the disappointing 2019-20 season notwithstanding.

A fabulous debut

BFC had signed a bunch of new players – Gurpreet, Paartalu, Dimas Delgado, Edu Garcia, and Miku and there were doubts on how well they would all gel together. However, those doubts were quickly dispelled. While the eventual loss to Chennaiyin FC in the final was heart-breaking and unfortunate, the Blues were outstanding throughout the league games. BFC blazed through the league games winning 13 of the 18 league games and finishing on 40 points, 8 ahead of the second-placed Chennaiyin FC. I was lucky to watch almost all the home games in the stadium with my beloved West Block Blues. The striker duo of captain Sunil Chhetri and Miku was unstoppable scoring 29 goals between themselves. The defense was also solid with BFC conceding the least goals (16) in the league stages and keeping the maximum clean sheets (8). Goalkeeper Gurpreet and defenders John Johnson, Subhashish Bose, Rahul Bheke, and Juanan were all outstanding. After the season they had, BFC definitely deserved to win the ISL in its debut season. However, it seemed just a bad day at the office for the Blues in the final. Subhashish (my favorite BFC player then) was sorely missed in the final against Chennaiyin, having picked up 2 yellow cards in 2 legs of the semi-final play-off against Pune City FC.

The redemption

John Johnson and Subhashish who had been defensive pillars had chosen to move on from the club.  Carles Cuadrat replaced Albert Roca as head coach and it was expected that BFC would carry on from where they had left off. Cuadrat had been the assistant coach under Roca earlier. The 2018-19 league performance however wasn’t quite as remarkable as the earlier season. BFC started well but lost steam towards the second half of the season. The Blues still ended up top of the table on goal difference with a few ISL records – an 11-match unbeaten run, 6 of which were consecutive wins. I was fortunate to have witnessed a part of these at the Fortress Kaanterava. After narrowly missing out on the earlier year, Gurpreet also snapped up the Golden Glove award. The 116th-minute goal by Rahul Bheke is permanently etched in my memory and more than made up for the disappointment in the final earlier year. The victory in the finals remains one of the happiest moments in my life.

A disappointing 2019-20 season

Even a die-hard fan like me must admit that the season gone by was disappointing. While I was obviously unhappy to see BFC lose to eventual champions ATK in the semi-final, it was probably what we deserved. BFC was not able to fill the big gap left by their departing Venezuelan striker, Miku. The Blues managed to score only 24 goals (22 in the 18 league games), with 15 goals through set-pieces. The poor performing frontline - Udanta, Ashique, Brown, and Agusto must take a lion’s share of the blame for the disappointing 2019-20 season. The season was salvaged somewhat by the solid defensive line. BFC conceded just 16 goals in the 20 games in the season. Gurpreet remains the best goalkeeper in the league, a few howlers he made notwithstanding (including in the away game against Mumbai City FC – the one I watched in the stadium). Youngster Suresh Wangjam was the find of the season and expect big things from him in the future. Contract extensions by Juanan and Erik Paartalu mean defensive solidity is also here to stay. However, the over-reliance on captain Chhetri in front of goal needs to end if the Blues hope to go a few notches higher in the upcoming season.