All level
February 5, 2012
Four of the top six sides in the Bundesliga tied their opponents on Saturday, and Werder Bremen made it five of the top six for the weekend on Sunday by traveling to Freiburg and coming away with just a point.
Bremen went on top first as Zlatko Junuzovic and Claudio Pizarro played a nifty cross-pitch one-two to set up the first goal on the half-hour mark. The 24-year-old Junuzovic had been handed his first start since joining at midweek from Austria Wien for 500,000 euros.
Freiburg struck back fast, however - through an unlikely source. Cedrick Makiadi had scored just five times in 87 appearances for the club going into Sunday, despite playing those games as a striker or offensive midfielder. But he added another to his meager total by heading home from close range off a corner in the 32nd minute.
In the second half, Claudio Pizarro struck again to put Bremen back in front. Mehmet Ekici played a nicely weighted ball to put him through on the left side of the area, and the Peruvian striker added to his prodigious goal tally with a nifty finish off the outside of his right boot.
As always seemed likely in this match between two of the Bundesliga's worst defenses, there was more scoring to come. In the 70th minute, Jonathan Schmid's shot to the near post was too strong for Bremen keeper Tim Wiese to keep hold of.
“If we'd only been a bit more calm on the ball in decisive moments we could have got more out of this game,” said Werder coach Thomas Schaaf.
Goats' hero
In the day's other match, Cologne defeated Kaiserslautern 1-0 to rise to 9th place in a tightly-packed mid-table. The Billy goats are level on 24 points with Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg.
On a pitch at the Betzenberg that still bore traces of snow the ground's staff had worked hard to clear by game time, Cologne and Kaiserslautern didn't offer much in the way of excitement. Until the introduction of one 20-year-old Albanian.
Odise Roshi, all of 99 seconds after coming on as a substitute, rose to meet a Christian Clemens corner kick and headed in from inside the six-yard box to break the deadlock in the 72nd minute. It was Roshi's first goal in the Bundesliga.
"It was a game in which a loss could have sent us into the relegation fight, and a win could take us into a single-digit place in the table. It was very important to get a result," said Cologne Sporting Director Volker Finke
Table set
Having drawn on Sunday, Werder reclaimed fifth place from Leverkusen, who had drawn 1-1 at home to Stuttgart on Saturday.
Freiburg remain stuck in last place, level on 17 points with FC Augsburg, who drew at Hoffenheim 2-2. In other draws on the weekend, Schalke and Mainz ended 1-1, Wolfsburg and Borussia Mönchengladbach 0-0, and Hamburg and Bayern Munich 1-1.
The weekend's big winners were Borussia Dortmund who went two points clear at the top of the table with a 2-0 win over Nuremberg on Friday.
Hertha Berlin, meanwhile, were the big losers - rolling over to lose 1-0 at home to Hanover. The Capital club has not won in the league since October.
Author: Matt Hermann
Editor: Mark Hallam