The face off between reigning Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen and 2024/25 favourites FC Bayern was one of the big matches of the European football weekend, and it certainly delivered in a hotly contested 1-1 draw. And in a weekend of great top flight football there were entertaining wins for both Borussia Dortmund and Red Bull Leipzig as things begin to get more congested at the top.
In Munich Robert Andrich gave the visitors the lead with a stunning goal which gave Manuel Neuer no chance in the Bayern goal. Granit Xhaka met a corner at the far post and laid it back to Andrich on the edge of the penalty area and he fired an arrow of a shot low into the corner. That was on 31 minutes, and just eight later the Bavarians were level with an even more spectacular effort. This time it was Aleksandar Pavlovic who found the roof of the net with a thumping volley from all of 25 yards.
Serge Gnabry came within an inch of winning it for Bayern but he hit the post and then thumped the rebound against the bar.
The Bundesliga 2024 betting odds say the title will be probably be decided between these two teams and, while they put on a good show, it’s far too early to call this a two horse race, as the other title contenders flexed their muscles.
Guirassy arrives in Dortmund
Borussia Dortmund recovered from a 5-1 shellacking at the hands of VfB Stuttgart last week to launch a stunning comeback against Bochum as summer signing Serhou Guirassy scored a vital brace to make it three goals for the season. The 81,000 crowd at the Signal Iduna Stadium was stunned into rare silence by two early Bochum goals but the Yellow Wall erupted into life when Guirassy halved the deficit on the stroke of half time.
Bochum’s Matus Bero kept his cool to give the visitors a lead in the 16th minute when he latched on to Philipp Hofmann’s cross and slid the ball past Gregor Kobel. And the BVB keeper made an uncharacteristic error just five minutes later when he fumbled the ball to allow Dani de Wit to make it two. But the half time team-talks were changed when Guirassy popped up on 44 minutes to head home a cross from Julian Brandt. It was the perfect time to score a goal and particularly hard on Bochum keeper Patrick Drewes who had made a string of superb saves.
The inevitable avalanche came in the second half and it was Guirassy who create the equaliser when he was fouled by Felix Passlack and Emre Can stroked home the penalty; and the Guinean striker smashed home his second and Dortmund’s third when he converted from a Karim Adeyemi pass. Felix Nmecha arrowed a long range strike into the bottom corner to round off the scoring at 4-2 as Adeyemi picked up his second assist of the game.
At the start of the season this SBOTOP writer tipped Dortmund as a title contender and Die Schwarzgelben have made a decent start, climbing to second with this win on Friday with ten points from five games.
Sesko stars as Red Bull run riot
Two goals in five minutes from Slovenian striker Benjamin Sesko put Red Bull on the road to a resounding 4-0 victory against FC Augsburg with just a quarter of an hour of the game gone. The 6ft 5in forward’s first was a well aimed strike from outside the penalty area, low and into the bottom corner after good work from Lois Openda; and his second was a clinical header from a David Raum cross.
On 25 minutes Lutsharel Geertruida upended Dimitris Giannoulis to concede a penalty but Augsburg missed the chance to halve the deficit when Jeffrey Gouweleeuw’s spot kick was saved by Peter Gulacsi. And Augsburg’s first half misery was compounded when Lois Openda latched on to a through ball from Xavi Simons and slid the ball in the bottom left corner.
If the visitors thought the second half would be any better they had another thought coming as Die Roten Bullen struck again, and this time 21 year old Sesko turned provider to tee up Simons for the Dutchman to finish coolly into the bottom right corner. That win took Red Bull up to second place past BVB and Bayer and SC Freiburg who started the game in fourth but, in one of the biggest Bundesliga 2024 results of the campaign, Freiburg lost 3-0 at home to new boys St Pauli, who began the weekend in the bottom three.
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