Bundesliga current: Undav scores for Stuttgart, discussion about red card

Whoever won 5-1 against Borussia Dortmund on the previous match day goes onto the pitch with a lot of self-confidence. It was the same with VfB Stuttgart, but the yield remained sobering. In the opening phase, the Swabians dominated against VfL Wolfsburg, Ermedin Demirović almost took the lead in the 4th minute – but the hosts scored the first goal. After a Stuttgart throw-in, VfL won the ball, Mohamed Amoura spun down the left side and Jonas Wind finished. After half an hour of play, VfB came back with a penalty. Enzo Millot initially missed, but the ball bounced forward and he was able to finish from close range into the right corner. Wolfsburg played defensively and this might have been the next sobering home game for the club.

But then came the 63rd minute, a duel between Maximilian Arnold and Atakan Karazor ended with yellow-red for the Stuttgart player. But: for what? Karazor hadn’t hit his opponent at all – but rather had been hit the other way around. This wrong decision had consequences. Five minutes later, Deniz Undav lost the ball and at the end of this scene Amoura celebrated his shot to make it 2-1. The Algerian had barely finished celebrating when he was the center of attention again. Amoura slid into Jamie Leweling from behind, didn’t really hit him, but the ball was already gone. That’s why there was red, but only for a moment. Referee Jablonski ran to the monitor and the VAR had switched on. And if VfB supporters had hoped for compensatory justice, they were disappointed. Jablonski reversed his decision after a long period of reflection, Amoura saw yellow, VfL remained on the pitch with eleven men.

But the script of this wild afternoon still called for a highlight: in the seventh minute of injury time, Undav equalized with a volley – and Stuttgart were still able to make peace.

RB Leipzig – FC Augsburg 4:0 (2:0), Tore: 1:0 und 2:0 Benjamin Sesko (11., 15.), 3:0 Lois Openda (46.), 4:0 Xavi Simons (57.)

Sometimes in football it’s no different than in urban transport: first there’s no bus for a while, then two in a row. RB Leipzig had not won three times recently, neither in the Champions League (1:2 at Atlético Madrid) nor in the league, where there were two goalless draws. It didn’t take long against Augsburg before the ball was in the net for the first time after 200 goalless minutes: Benjamin Sesko was attacked too harmlessly and, after turning and making a physical move, hit the far corner. Barely four minutes later the next goal followed: again from Sesko, this time with a header from a cross from David Raum.

Augsburg had the goal on their feet when referee Siebert whistled for a penalty in the 25th minute: RB defender Lutsharel Geertruida ran a little too impetuously into Augsburg’s Dimitris Giannoulis and slashed him in the shin. But Jeffrey Gouweleeuw’s low shot was confidently parried by RB keeper Peter Gulacsi.

At Leipzig the spell had now been broken in every respect: as soon as the second half had begun, Xavi Simons artistically laid on Lois Openda from the air. Shortly afterwards, the Dutchman Xavi scored himself, again from a cross from space. The overall harmless Augsburg team, with Philip Tietz replacing the suspended Samuel Essende, barely made it through that day. Leipzig’s traffic radio reports: The bus lane to the gate is free again.

Borussia Monchengladbach – 1. FC Union Berlin 1:0 (0:0), Tor: Tomas Cvancara (90.+6)

According to Gladbach’s coach Gerardo Seoane, his team had recently shown appealing performances despite the low number of points. And the foals trotted quite nicely across the lawn on Saturday against 1. FC Union. But handsomeness is not the same as efficiency. At the beginning, Seoane’s team created a lot of chances without scoring anything: Philipp Sander hit the ball over the crossbar in the 17th minute; Shortly afterwards, the young Luca Netz missed the target. Then Netz laid on his colleague Kevin Stöger, who also missed the goal. There was little danger from Union on the counterattack.

In the second half it initially looked as if Gladbach’s attacks would completely fizzle out. Then they scored again – in the sixth of eight minutes of injury time: a cross from Robin Hack sailed in from the left side, Tomas Cvancara caught the ball with his head and directed it into the net. For Gladbach it was the first home win in seven months across all seasons – since a 5-2 against Bochum in February. There was that How In the end it doesn’t matter.

SC Freiburg – FC St. Pauli 0:3 (0:2), Tore: 0:1 und 0:3 Elias Saad (12., 72.), 0:2 Oladapo Afolayan (45.),

Overconfidence is Freiburg’s natural enemy, and before the game against FC St. Pauli he said that the first thoughts were whether the change of coach from Christian Streich to Julian Schuster might have come at exactly the right time. Of course, the thoughts didn’t come from the Freiburg team themselves, they would never say anything against their Chrischtian, but from outside, but the new guy’s statistics were also convincing: four wins in five games, only lost against Bayern, so many goals…

After just 45 minutes, the sports club no longer had to worry that there would be too much euphoria, because the promoted team from Hamburg was already leading 2-0, and it could have been even worse. Elias Saad took advantage of a collective lapse in the Freiburg defense, Eric Smith hammered a free kick onto the crossbar, and Oladapo Afolayan increased before the break. Vincenzo Grifo could have equalized, but he trusted his strong right foot so much to take a penalty that he didn’t try. Classic cockiness, Nikola Vasilj parried.

After the break, Grifo’s foot almost did its job again, but his precise cross to Philipp Lienhart’s head did not lead to the goal because Lienhart was just offside. Instead, Saad scored again to make it 3-0 and decide, Freiburg’s goalkeeper Noah Atubolu didn’t look good. The fact that Lucas Höler was also offside when another goal was scored fit into the unpleasant day in Freiburg. St. Pauli celebrates its first Bundesliga win since 2011. By the way, the last three Bundesliga points in the “foreign” region were in Hamburg against HSV.

1. FSV Mainz 05 – 1. FC Heidenheim 0:2 (0:1), Goals: 0:1 Marvin Pieringer (15th), 0:2 Jan Schöppner (86th)

Professional pessimists, including Heidenheim’s coach Frank Schmidt at times, would say: Heidenheim has to collect points now, because from next week the double burden of the European Cup and the Bundesliga will take effect, and then the table will steadily go downhill again. Really? Let’s see.

In Mainz, Schmidt’s team largely had the game under control, even before the yellow-red cards against Mainz defender Andreas Hanche-Olsen after half an hour. Marvin Pieringer scored artistically. When they were outnumbered, the 05ers created even fewer chances against the notoriously compact Heidenheim block. And even when Heidenheim only played with ten men after a red card against Niklas Dorsch, things didn’t get any better from Mainz’s point of view: Jan Schöppner overturned the decision. On Thursday the Slovenians from Olimpija Ljubljana come to the Alb – the Conference League starts.