15:30 Kickoffs: Frankfurt humble Bayern, Union snap winless skid, Heidenheim take basement duel
An absolutely insane set of results in the latest set of Bundesliga 15:30 kickoffs ended up proving every last oddsmaker wrong. Eintracht Frankfurt unexpectedly demolished German record champions FC Bayern München in a 5-1 thrashing. FC Union Berlin also won for the first time since August with a convincing 3-1 home win over Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Freiburg, Bremen, and 1. FC Heidenheim were the other three winners in a set of five concurrent fixtures that featured no draws. Bremen handed Augsburg trainer Jess Thorup his first defeat. Freiburg continued to place pressure on VfL Wolfsburg trainer Niko Kovac with their win. Frank Schmidt's Heidenheim topped fellow promoted side Darmstadt in a five-goal thriller.
Freiburg, Bremen, and 1. FC Heidenheim were the other three winners in a set of five concurrent fixtures that featured no draws. Bremen handed Augsburg trainer Jess Thorup his first defeat. Freiburg continued to place pressure on VfL Wolfsburg trainer Niko Kovac with their win. Frank Schmidt's Heidenheim topped fellow promoted side Darmstadt in a five-goal thriller.
| Joshua Kimmich. | Photo: GEPA Pictures/Sven Sonntag |
Tuchel made four changes to the side last seen action against FC Copenhagen in a Champions' League "dead rubber". Min-Jae Kim, Noussair Mazraoui, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, and Leroy Sané took the places of Konrad Laimer, Raphaël Guerreiro, Mathys Tel, and Thomas Müller. Toppmöller made three changes to the team that suffered a shock elimination in the DFB Pokal midweek. Hugo Larsson, Aurelio Buta, and Ansgar Knauff started over Makoto Hasebe, Philipp Max, and Niels Nkounkou.
The Hessian hosts put forth a fearless foot in the opening minutes. Taking advantage of a Bayern side that appeared rusty and sluggish, Toppmöller's SGE played their way through Bayern and generated chance after chance in the opening ten minutes. It wasn't long after kickoff when the RheinMain Adler were rewarded for their efforts. Fares Chaibi sent a failed Mazraoui clearance off the crossbar. Omar Marmoush calmly collected the rebound and supplied a fine finish off the turn for the 12th-minute 1-0.
Toppmöller's crew rode their momentum and kept up the attacking waves. Some 20 minutes into the fixture, Bayern were still awaiting their first shot-on-target. The Bavarians did finally get some decent charges off as the half-hour-mark approached. Harry Kane narrowly missed the equalizer in the 25th. Choupo found himself stymied by SGE keeper Kevin Trapp four minutes later. Just when it appeared as if the favorites would get themselves back in the game, however, the 2-0 came in the 31st.
Eric Junior Dina Ebimbe polished off a lightning quick Eintracht counter that featured involvement from Marmoush and Knauff. Shellshocked Bayern proceeded to make more mistakes. Within five minutes, Toppmöller's side had capitalized on the counter again. Larsson initiated a 36th-minute counter with a pickoff of a Joshua Kimmich pass. The young Swedish phenom then received the ball back via a one-two with Marmoush. Incredibly, Bayern were down 0-3 after Larsson's except finish.
Kimmich managed to redeem himself with a crushing distance effort from outside the 18 in the 44th. Celebrations after the pull-back goal remained muted. The record champions headed into the tunnel with their heads visibly hung low. Tuchel responded to the deficit by replacing his fullbacks at the break. Guerreiro and Laimer entered on behalf of Davies and Mazraoui. The first five minutes after the restart belonged exclusively to the guests. Unfortunately, Kane, Choupo, and Kimmich all failed to find the finish during a 47th-minute flurry.
Frankfurt broke through on the counter in the 50th. Ebimbe scored his second goal of the evening on the 4-1. Just like Larsson earlier in the match, the Frenchman both initiated a counter and finished it off himself. Ebimbe completed his scorer's brace with some help from Chaibi. Tuchel's men - in their attempt to muster up some sort of response - could only leave themselves vulnerable on the counter again. The set patterns repeated until Knauff scored the 5-1 in the 60th.
Once the game was settled at the hour-mark, there was little much of note going on. Bayern - to their credit - did keep trying to score another consolation goal. Frankfurt came close on a couple of occasions to once again exploiting the Bavarians on the counter. Kane found himself unable to keep his footing on a wet pitch during a pair of late chances. The full-time whistle blew
Elsewhere in the Bundesliga's 15:30 kickoffs, 1. FC Union Berlin were finally able to snap their unprecedented 16-match winless-run. Nenad Bjelica's Eisernen topped visiting Gladbach 3-1 at the Stadion An der Alten Försterei. The win featured goals from young and underutilized strikers Benedict Hollerbach and Mikkel Kaufmann. Kevin Volland also converted from the spot.
SV Werder Bremen were also able to snap their own four-match winless-run with a 2-0 home victory over visiting Augsburg at the WeserStadion. Christian Streich's SC Freiburg put together a three-match winning streak on-the-spin with an away win over Wolfsburg. Precisely like last week against Mainz, the rising Michael Gregortisch scored the lone match-winning goal.
A meeting between the league's two newly-promoted sides at the Voith Arena turned into a five-goal thriller. Torsten Lieberknecht's SV Darmstadt 98 were able to turn a 0-1 deficit into a 2-1 lead against hosting Heidenheim. FCH captain Patrick Mainka nevertheless scored two goals in quick succession late to deliver all three points to Frank Schmidt's Albogen club.
