Bayer Leverkusen are guaranteed to be top of the Bundesliga at Christmas – and few saw that coming!
Their emphatic 3-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Sunday afternoon ensured they will be at the summit during the winter break in Germany’s top flight.
Of that milestone, they should be very proud, as they should of this performance, creating a string of Bundesliga highlights against the team which had humbled the champions just eight days earlier.
Frankfurt’s dismantling of Bayern Munich had caused a stir and, while a decent point, Leverkusen’s failure to win at high-flying Stuttgart last weekend had caused this SBOTOP writer to suggest it was a missed opportunity.
I still stand by that given the relentless nature of the Bavarians, yet you can’t argue with the record of the leaders which now stands at played 15, won 12, drawn three.
They certainly maintained their lead at the top with a fine display, all started by a player in a rich vein of form, Victor Boniface.
He grabbed his ninth league goal of the campaign 14 minutes in to help set them on their way.
The Nigerian striker’s opener perhaps should have been saved but the majority inside the BayArena didn’t care as they saluted their hero.
Two goals in six minutes shortly after the restart then sealed the deal as Marco Alonso’s men ran out 3-0 winners.
Boniface was again involved six minutes after the restart when goalkeeper Kevin Trapp pushed away his shot but Jeremie Frimpong was on hand to turn home the rebound.
To complete his day, Boniface grabbed another assist (his eighth in the league to date) with a pass which was cutely finished by Florian Wirtz.
Of course, it’s been very rare at any point over the past decade that the Bundesliga betting odds have backed against Bayern Munich, and that remains the case.
They responded in kind by eventually easing past Stuttgart.
If the visitors to the Allianz Arena were going to be on the receiving end of a Bavarian backlash, it didn’t take long.
Less than two minutes had elapsed when Leroy Sane capitalised on a mistake and laid the ball into the path of Harry Kane who tapped home his 19th of the season.
It was an opening goal which promoted two telling statistics.
Firstly, it meant Bayern have now scored in 64 successive Bundesliga home games, equalling the league record – only Bayern themselves had previously managed such a long home scoring streak from 1970 to 1974.
Secondly, Sane’s assist also was his 16th direct goal involvement this term (eight goals, eight assists), already setting a new personal record for a single season in the competition.
Only the intervention of VAR prevented two more Bayern goals before the break as Stuttgart held on, despite dominating possession.
You can’t keep a good man down, though, and the England captain made it number 20 in the Bundesliga for the season 10 minutes after the restart when a floated Aleksandar Pavlovic free-kick was headed back by centre back Kim Min-jae for Kane to head in at the near post.
Kim, an astute summer signing from Napoli, then got on the scoresheet himself with a header, which took a deflection, after another Pavlovic delivery.
The joy on his face as he scored his first for his new cub, moments after claiming his first assist, said it all.
Bayern were home and hosed.
Elsewhere, when Maxence Lacroix was shown a 27th minute card for Wolfsburg at basement battlers Damstad on Saturday, the home side must have thought they had a chance to lift themselves off the foot of the table and even out of the drop zone.
However, try ags they might, they could not defeat the Wolves who had gone into the contest on the back of six straight away defeats.
Lovro Majer’s fine strike in the 63rd minute duly ended that sequence to settle the contest and lift them to ninth in the table.
It left the home side frustrated, not least Lacroix who has now received five red cards in his Wolfsburg career, a club record.
While they remain bottom, spare a thought for Union Berlin who are just a point ahead of them and in big trouble.
Yes, this is the same Berlin who finished fourth last term and qualified for the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history.
Their rise to Europe’s biggest stage has been quite a story but, after their European adventure was official ended by the mighty Real Madrid in midweek, they now have to recapture the form they showed to get there or risk going in a totally different direction.
Their 3-0 reverse at fellow strugglers Bochum on Saturday was a confidence blow and leaves them sitting in 15th place.
Takumi Asano scored on the stroke of half-time to knock the stuffing out of the visitors and Gonçalo Paciência doubled the lead after the interval. As the game approached the final 10 minutes, Kevin Stöger netted a penalty to secure the win. The gap between Bochum and Berlin now stands at six points.
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