Mario Götze will bid farewell to his boyhood club for a second time at the end of this season, according to Borussia Dortmund sporting director Michael Zorc.
The battle for the prestigious European Golden Shoe award has effectively morphed into a four-horse race between Lazio’s Ciro Immobile and three Bundesliga representatives: Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski, RB Leipzig’s Timo Werner and Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland. The Bundesliga top scorers are largely pacing Europe right now, but who else is lighting up Germany’s top division?
(Updated 05/24/20)
Everything Erling Haaland does is magic, even when he fucks up.
Haaland was unable to add to his tally of 41 goals in his 35th match but still helped create Borussia Dortmund’s first goal in a 2-0 victory over Wolfsburg on Saturday.
After scoring upon Bundesliga’s return last week, Haaland was fairly quiet on the road this time around. In fact, BVB in general failed to create the number of chances you come to expect from one of Europe’s most exciting teams.
BERLIN — From social distancing substitutes using airport stairs, to disinfected balls and a potential television audience of one billion, the Bundesliga enjoyed a chequered restart as the first major sports league to resume amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
German soccer's top two divisions, suspended since mid-March due to the coronavirus, returned on Saturday with a schedule that included the Bundesliga's showcase — the Ruhr valley derby between Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 — as football-starved fans around the world tuned in to watch live action.
American teenager Giovanni Reyna suffered an injury Saturday while warming up for his first start in the Bundesliga.
Our Starting XI against S04
Gio Reyna will make his first official start for BVB pic.twitter.com/bKSxcSPYbq
— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) May 16, 2020
We knew it would be weird. We knew it would be a new normal. We knew we didn’t care.
Major European football returned from a two-month hiatus as the Bundesliga kicked off with six matches on Saturday, none bigger than the Revierderby between Ruhr rivals Borussia Dortmund and Schalke.
Dortmund, without its menacing Yellow Wall behind it, throttled Schalke 4-0, instituting its own form of social distancing on the scoreboard.
I’m quite sure I’m not alone in saying I had no problem waking up early Saturday morning. For the first time in two months, there was a reason to crawl out of bed before 10 a.m. as the Bundesliga became the first major European football league to return from its coronavirus hiatus. And what better way to return than the intense Revierderby?
A quick guide to who's who in the Bundesliga as the season is set to resume this weekend (in order of league standings).
#1. BAYERN MUNICH
Manager: Hans-Dieter Flick
Player to watch: Robert Lewandowski
The Bundesliga resumes action on Saturday, May 16, with the added intrigue of being one of Europe’s most tightly contested title races. Bayern Munich, in hot pursuit of its eighth straight Meisterschale, has a four-point lead over Borussia Dortmund with nine matches remaining, but both Leipzig and Gladbach are within six points of the leader.