The Bundesliga begins again tonight after a winter break of almost three weeks, with Borussia Dortmund against Bayer Leverkusen at the Westfalenstadion.
So, with the snow cleared away and Christmas trees put out for collection (all in good, orderly German fashion), these are the stories to watch as football over here awakens from hibernation.
Slowly, some of the fatalism that surrounded Vincent Kompany’s appointment this summer is fading. Bayern Munich is Bayern Munich, so each and every coach they hire is expected to lead to dynastic success; however, a step back from the bigger picture shows a Bayern that has taken a step forward this season, which, at least locally, has been impressive and is leading the standings. league. Formation
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The club’s young players enjoy running with Kompany and his training and it shows.
Aleksandar Pavlovic had an just right season before breaking his collarbone, Jamal Musiala is in the shape of his career and, much criticized and not technically balanced, a pair of central defenders made up of Kim Min-jae and Dayot Upamecano have greater pershapeed greater than any one else. I may just have hoped. Seven consecutive blank sheets in October and November bear witness to this.
As does the fact their opponents across the 15 league games so far had a combined expected goals (xG) figure of just 9.6. Bayern only conceded 75 shots across those matches, less than half the number allowed by any other team in the top flight.
However, it seems that we are in a season of discovery in Bavaria. Former Burnley manager Kompany is learning and adapting to the task: to the length of this club, the scale of its ambitions and the other types of demanding situations Bayern face over the course of a season. October’s humiliating 4-1 Champions League defeat to Barcelona, for example, was the precursor to that long goalless streak and a vast improvement in the quality of the team’s pressing.
And now?
Bayern’s next six months will be governed by contractual conditions and possible options on who to retain in relation to Musiala, Alphonso Davies, Leroy Sane, Manuel Neuer and Thomas Muller.
When Kompany took the job, this was one of the reservations: how would he handle the ructions of a big club, built around stars and egos, where the environment does not allow for giving everybody what they want all the time? Most likely, this will be the time when we find out.
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It’s still too early to tell. The first half of the season had moments of encouragement, but the virtues of new manager Sahin’s football — quick transitions with high numbers committed to attacking phases — only really showed fleetingly. In addition, while Jamie Gittens’ breakthrough has been exciting and Felix Nmecha is showing signs of evolving into a really compelling No 6, the structure around those individual performances has often looked brittle.
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Can that change? The sample size is too small to say for certain.
Their form away from home also remains traditionally poor. Dortmund are sixth in the standings, but only won in their 2024-25 Bundesliga holiday on the last day of the calendar year (3-1 at Wolfsburg). Results, however, with players accused of a lack of center and determination and, more overwhelmingly, of needing the support of their enthusiasts to transform.
It’s easy to blame the intangibles. The injured list will also have to take some responsibility, as Nico Schlotterbeck is the only starting defender who has not missed significant playing time before Christmas. However, many of Dortmund’s away performances look the same and are marred by anonymity and ultimately serious mistakes. This will also have to change.
The local media have not been soft on Sahin on account of his being a former Dortmund player. Nor have the fans. Both will need to see more if they are to keep faith in a coach who has only two years of senior touchline experience and had never managed a German club before stepping up from an assistant’s role to replace Edin Terzic last summer.
There are ideological issues above it.
However, some of the ideological questions I had on top of me have already been answered and that helps. On Thursday, the club announced a contract extension for sporting director Sebastian Kehl, whose current contract only lasted until the summer of 2025. Speculation about Kehl’s future – and his relationship with Lars Ricken, who will become sporting leader in May 2024 – has been a recurring topic in the media in Germany for months. This new contract, which runs until 2027, repairs a certain sustainability to the club’s technical structures and ensures a certain stability above Sahin.
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Over time, the story around Marmoush will become what he does next, specifically where he will target current club Eintracht Frankfurt, with Manchester City known to be looking for a deal to sign him. But it is worth staying on the offer. Because what he is doing this season in the Bundesliga is truly remarkable.
Yes, the volume of goals, but also the type; He’s adding new elements to his game, which is part of what makes him so dangerous and also makes Marmoush so watchable.
Play with precision and rhythm and combine with Hugo Ekitike.
Frankfurt’s form waned before Christmas, but Marmoush was still turning defenses into rubble and is capable of taking them to the Champions League.
Its resurgence in form also reminds us of how the ability’s progression works: not in steady, graceful increments, but in dramatic lurches. Marmoush will turn 26 in less than a month. In 2020–21, he was loaned to St Pauli in the 2. Bundesliga, the second division. Just 18 months ago, he had never scored twice as many goals in a season in the German league. Throughout the entire 2023-24 season, he scored 12 goals in 29 Bundesliga games. This season he has surpassed that figure in the first twelve games and already has thirteen goals in La Liga alone in 15 games.
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The Egyptian is becoming a phenomenal player and this adventure (his evolution to success at this point) is as compelling as any move story that follows.
To measure Henriksen’s performance as Mainz coach, this time last year they seemed destined for relegation.
Bo Svensson had resigned in the November, his replacement Jan Siewert lasted three months and Henriksen inherited a side who had just 12 points from 21 games. Twelve months on, Mainz are fifth, just two points from the Champions League places, and were the team to finally end Bayern’s unbeaten start in the league with a 2-1 win on December 14.
Henriksen, a 49-year-old Dane who in the past coached Midtjylland in his country and FC Zurich in Switzerland, is colorful. He’s a little wild on the sidelines with his aging rocker hair, but he’s not a clown by any means.
He has restored confidence to a team who were, before his arrival, playing with absolutely none of it, making them quicker and far more effective with their counter-press and a physical challenge for anybody in the league.
Jurgen Klopp made his coaching name at Mainz after his playing career finished there. Thomas Tuchel followed in his footsteps, before also moving on to manage Dortmund. People do not talk about Henriksen in the same way, but his work is hard to dismiss.
He revived the careers of Jonathan Burkardt (who became a complete German foreigner in October at age 24) and Lee Jae-sung (who was an insignificant player for most of last season) and leveled the issues with Mainz in 2023 -24. Champions League runners-up Dortmund, despite having a budget around a fifth of theirs and having sold star winger Brajan Gruda to Brighton this summer for £25 million ($30. 7 million at the rate of current change).
Given where Mainz have been over the past year, a European finish of any kind in May would be remarkable.
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Wirtz is probably the only player at champions Leverkusen to be performing at a higher level this season than in the previous one. With good timing because all sorts of clubs are busy making their pitch about where his future should lie. That story will cast a shadow over everything else that happens between now and May and probably beyond.
For now, bets are on a contract extension at the BayArena. Before Christmas, reports circulated that a new deal had already been agreed and signed, but Leverkusen leader Fernando Carro publicly denied this.
The club has good reasons to keep Wirtz, because if there is a player in the best tune and in the right situation, it is him. Especially if his coach, Xabi Alonso, extends his contract, which is also a possibility.
It is widespread in German football that maximum routes of movement lead to the Allianz Arena and, true to form, Bayern are interested. But with a valuation of €150m (£125. 7m/$154. 5m), it’s difficult to see how signing the 21-year-old could be financially viable for them, or even make sense. Bayern’s priority is to renew the contract of their own young star, Musiala, and Paul Wanner, another The ridiculously talented number 10, who is only 19 years old, arrives on loan in the Bundesliga with Heidenheim.
It’s a genuine saga, with all kinds of permutations and consequences.
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There is an omnipotent mess unfolding at the foot of the table.
Bochum won their first game of the season on the final matchday before Christmas, but with only six points, manager Dieter Hecking — who replaced Peter Zeidler in early November — has an arduous task ahead. His side have retrospectively been awarded a win against Union Berlin after a fan hit Bochum’s goalkeeper with a lighter, but the points will not be added to the table until an appeal is heard.
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The two promoted groups are doing better than expected. Holstein Kiel has struggled over the fall and winter to earn 8 points, but is scoring enough goals (19 so far) to remain competitive (albeit conceding at a rate of 2. 5 per game). However, they have the lowest payroll in the league, so Marcel Rapp would be in Coach of the Year territory if he led them to survival. A 5-1 home win against fellow endangered Augsburg saw them head into the winter break in style.
Saint Pauli? You are welcome.
Defensively, Alexander Blessin’s side have been excellent and while goals have been hard to come by — they have scored three in their seven matches at home and 12 in total — they hope Abdoulie Ceesay, a 21-year-old signed from Estonian club Paide Linnameeskond, will add oomph in attack.
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It’s a wild card. Ceesay didn’t even have a Wikipedia page until Jan. 2, but he cashed in €350,000, has already played and scored for the Gambian national team and was on the verge of joining Belgium’s Union Saint-Gilloise, one of Europe’s most no-nonsense skill scouts. to look at. By the way, Bolton and West Ham enthusiasts will love Dapo Afolayan, as he had a good first season in the Bundesliga with Hamburg.
Elsewhere around the creaky trap, great dangers were faced with new attackers.
Hoffenheim are hoping Gift Orban can come in from France’s Lyon and replace some of the goals Max Beier took with him when he departed for Dortmund last summer and Heidenheim, who lost Tim Kleindienst ahead of this season and look drained by their double duty in the Conference League, have raided Karlsruhe for Boris Zivzivadze, who was top scorer in 2.Bundesliga (12 goals from 17 games) in the first half of the season.
Since Union Berlin (who fired Bo Svensson at half-time and appointed Steffen Baumgart) is in 12th place, everyone is still in danger.
This will happen until the end.
(Top photo: Bayern head coach Kompany; by Alexander Hassenstein via Getty Images)