League Focus: Whatever Happened to Bayern’s Bundesliga Challengers?

This week’s hot ticket is in no doubt; Hertha Berlin’s Olympiastadion will host what is sure to be Bayern Munich’s coronation. A win for Pep Guardiola’s side will mathematically clinch a second straight Bundesliga title, with 7 games to spare.

There will be some regrets five hours’ drive west in Dortmund, where the Signal Iduna Park hosts the Revierderby with Schalke, which would normally be the showpiece of any match night. Despite the considerable budgetary gap between the pair and Bayern, these two north-western teams would have hoped to give the champions a bit more to think about. So where have Bayern’s rivals come up short?

Dortmund have disappointed neutrals most, even if a chastening domestic season is ultimately resizing expectation. Saturday’s win at Hannover was something we should have seen more of from Jürgen Klopp’s side in this campaign – an efficient, tidy display in response to a not-so-straightforward challenge. Though an 8th away win in the Bundesliga looks good, Dortmund’s 20% chance conversion rate at the HDI-Arena would not have gone amiss in some of their previous sorties.

The costly defeats at Borussia Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg and Hamburg, in particular, spring to mind. In each of these three unsuccessful away days, BVB had more shots and more possession than their hosts – 27 shots to 6 and 57% possession at Gladbach, 12-10, 57% at Wolfsburg and 15-13, 65% at Hamburg – but scored just once in the three games combined.

Robert Lewandowski (16 goals) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (13) have scored well, but both might have had more. Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who hit 25 in 27 Ukrainian Premier League starts for Shakhtar Donetsk last season, has scored 6 in 21 in the Bundesliga this campaign.

Of course, it’s Dortmund’s home form that has been their real Achilles heel. They’ve lost 6 times at home in all competitions and went without a home win in the Bundesliga from the beginning of November to mid-February, the period in which their title challenge totally ran aground.

BVB’s local rivals Schalke probably can’t believe their own luck at finding themselves in third place. The Gelsenkirchen club’s fans tend to have high hopes but after a poor start to the campaign, which saw the board forced to publicly back coach Jens Keller before Christmas, occupying the final automatic Champions League spot is almost the stuff of dreams.

Schalke’s problems have always been fairly self-evident. They were the team who conceded the most goals from set-pieces in the Bundesliga last season and began this one in much the same way, with 3 goals conceded from corners in the first 2 games of the season.

Less has turned out to be more for Keller’s team, who – if you take out the hammerings by Bayern and Real Madrid – have conceded just 3 goals in 7 matches since the turn of the year. This is despite making an ostensibly attacking change to their line-up just before the winter break, with Kevin-Prince Boateng moving back to accompany Roman Neustädter in the double pivot. The adventurous Boateng was never going to stick there, so it’s a much looser interpretation of 4-2-3-1; and Schalke have benefitted from focussing on their strengths (attacking) rather than their weaknesses.

Schalke’s rise speaks as much for the failings of the Champions League chasers as their own strengths. Bayer Leverkusen, who along with Dortmund were thought the most likely to give Bayern some sort of run for their money at the season’s start, are the major culprit in this area.

Sunday’s late home defeat by Hoffenheim left them with just 2 wins in 13 Bundesliga games, with a Champions League humbling by Paris Saint-Germain and a DfB Pokal humiliation by Kaiserslautern thrown in for good measure. Only 1 clean sheet has been kept in the last 14, but a lack of goals is a big problem too, with Sunday’s match only the third time they’ve scored more than once in a game since the win over Nurnberg in late November.

After Sasha Lewandowski stepped aside, Sami Hyypia has been in sole charge this season. The former Liverpool defender is now taking care of the tactical plan (previously Lewandowski’s remit), but seems to be running out of ideas. In the current run of 6 winless Bundesliga games, Leverkusen have had more of the ball in 5. The other was against Bayern.

Wolfsburg and Borussia Mönchengladbach, on the other hand, never shared Dortmund or Leverkusen’s aims in at least making life uncomfortable for Bayern, yet they know that if either had produced anywhere near consistent form in the last few months, they would be firmly ensconced in the Champions League spots by now.

The five points dropped against bottom side – and local rivals – Eintracht Braunschweig would have made a huge difference to Dieter Hecking’s side. On the whole, the experienced coach has made the Wolves a much more balanced, stable outfit, but they are liable to brainstorms. Their discipline is notably poor, with a league high of 7 red cards, and the ensuing suspensions (including star midfielder Luiz Gustavo twice) have cost them dearly.

Two successive draws, including Saturday’s 1-1 with Augsburg, tells us they are still recovering from haemorrhaging 12 in 2 games to Hoffenheim and Bayern earlier in the month. The tightness of the race for the top four means they still have time to do so.

Gladbach, tutored by one of the league’s best coaches in Lucien Favre, were a dark horse at the start of the campaign, particularly given the arrival of forward quality in Raffael and Max Kruse. Both have done their bit, with the former’s 14 goals and the latter’s 10 augmented with a combined 11 assists, but one always sensed that the pair’s excellence papered over some significant cracks.

An entertaining watch, Gladbach were always open, conceding 16 shots per match (as a marker, Bayern and Dortmund typically concede 9 each per game). It was only a matter of time before it caught up with them. The surprise win at Dortmund on March 15th followed a horrible run of 9 winless Bundesliga games, stretching back to before Christmas. Germany forward Kruse’s goal at the Signal Iduna Park, which worked out to be the winner, was his first in 872 minutes.

Gladbach had resumed after the break with a home game against Bayern, full of hope. Their comprehensive 2-0 loss was a reality check. They, and the rest of the Bundesliga’s dreamers, have been aware of the gap between them and Bayern for some time. The time to prepare is now if another procession is to be avoided in 2014-15.

Can anyone close the gap on Bayern next season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below