The second weekend of action in the Bundesliga is in the books, and some of the scorelines are shocking to see. Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg grabbed impressive wins over Schalke and Hamburg, while others like Freiburg and Augsburg are still without a point after two games. Did I mention that Werder Bremen has six points? I still maintain that its in for a relegation battle this year, but its early wins (to be fair, it has only beaten Eintracht Braunschweig and Augsburg) are a good sign moving forward.
Bundesliga, Week 2 Saturday recap: Hoffenheim crush Hamburg, Gladbach beat Hannover
There were a lot of goals on Saturday in the Bundesliga, but five of the seven matches ended in shutouts.
Werder Bremen 1 - 0 Augsburg
Mehmet Ekici powered Werder to its second straight win with a goal in the 23rd minute. Werder now has six points out of six, while Augsburg is sitting on zero points. Augsburg kept attacking for a goal of its own through Sascha Mölders, but he couldn’t find the back of the net. It controlled possession in the match, but it were unable to do anything productive with it.
Freiburg 1 - 2 Mainz
It was an hour of feeling each other, but both sides finally came out of their shell in the 64th minute thanks to a goal by Mainz’s Niki Zimling. The goal came when Johannes Geis crossed the ball to the right side where Zimling met it with a header. Four minutes later Nicolai Müller continued his fantastic play and made it 2-0 by outracing his opponents to the ball and finishing past Oliver Baumann. It wasn’t long before Freiburg cut the lead to 2-1. Gelson Fernandes played in Sebastian Freis, and the forward scored to pull one back. The final minutes of the match saw Mainz come closer to increasing its lead than Freiburg actually leveling the score. The two clubs sit polar opposite after today’s game. Mainz are riding high on six points, while Freiburg have zero points after the first two games.
Hamburg 1 - 5 Hoffenheim
Thorsten Fink was going to be on the hot seat this season, and things really aren’t getting off to the best start. Last week, Hamburg coughed up two different leads on the way to drawing Schalke 3-3. However, this week it was on the wrong end of a beat down. Roberto Firmino opened the scoring in the first five minutes with a powerful header. The highlight for Hamburg was a penalty kick scored by Rafael Van der Vaart just before halftime. The second half started with a goal from Kevin Volland to make it 2-1 for Hoffenheim, and the floodgates opened. Anthony Modeste scored twice, both on assists from Firmino. The Brazilian showed no remorse for Rene Adler in the Hamburg goal and put another past him to make it 5-1.
Borussia Mönchengladbach 3 - 0 Hannover
Gladbach showed well last week in its 3-1 defeat to Bayern Munich, and that carried that over to this weekend in the home debut. It were the better side throughout the 90 minutes. The first goal came in the 20th minute from the foot of Max Kruse. Raffael held the ball up in the box before laying it off to an onrushing Kruse who shot past Ron-Robert Zieler for the 1-0 lead. Gladbach doubled the lead in the 53rd minute thanks, again, to Kruse. His initial shot was parried by Zieler, but he ran onto the end of the rebound. With Christoph Kramer running toward goal, Kruse lofted the ball into him, and the midfielder finished the loose ball to make it 2-0. Filip Daems converted a penalty in the 66th minute after a Hiroki Sakai handball to make it 3-0.
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