Koln and Hamburger kicking off the season in the 2. Bundesliga in front of a packed house. Quite a few first leagues would love to have this quality of clubs, stadium, and crowd.
All about the goalies in the first half. HSV up 2-0 as young goalie Jonas Urbig has looked shaky for Koln and Heuer Fernandes saved the only shot on goal from Koln.
Missed the Schalke 5-1 pasting of Braunschweig yesterday. ESPN3 is showing FC Energie Cottbus v Armenia Bielefeld in 3. Liga action at the moment. Bielefeld controlled the early action but Cottbus went up 1-0 in the 42nd minute. Curious situation at halftime as the Cottbus manager, Claus-Dieter Wollitz was sent off with a red card while arguing with the center ref before the teams left the field. No word yet on why.
Bielefeld weathers an early 2nd half push from Cottbus and are now completely controlling play. Oppie ties it for them in the 68th on a beautiful first touch off the wing to dribble into the box and place one nicely in the bottom corner.
Bielefeld get the winner in the 3rd minute of stoppage time. Maximilian Großer heads in the corner from Oppie.
Fun one between HSV and Hertha right now. HSV with the goal to go up 1-0 in the 11th minute but the overall stats are fairly close. Both teams with good chances and HSV may have to get back on the front foot to avoid allowing the late tying goal.
And there it is. HSV puts one off the inside of the post and Hertha comes back down and ties it 1-1 in the 86th minute.
No upsets so far in the DFB Pokal, but a couple of 1 goal games with Union Berlin once again looking like the magic is gone. Kiel with their first match as a top league member takes a 1-0 early at Achen, but the home side strikes back and now it's 1-1 in the 30th minute.
Holstein Kiel ties it in the 82nd minute and then take the lead, with the Aachen goalie wiping out his own defender in the box, 3-2 in the 1st minute of stoppage time.
Leverkusen and Stuttgart came out firing, 1-1 through 15 minutes, and now with Leverkusen down to 10 it looks like Stuttgart is having a contest to see who can hit the frame the most cleanly. Just clanging shots off the goal now.
Dorsch scores for the first time since December 2021 to put Augsburg up 1-3 at Viktoria Berlin. Saarbrucken and Nurnberg are tied 1-1 in 2nd half stoppage time, in what still has the possibility of being the 2nd upset of the round to go with Armenia Bielefeld's 2-0 win over Hannover 96.
Dresden is up 2-0 on Dusseldorf but ESPN+ sucks and the entire 2nd half has been "technical difficulties."
Dresden wins 2-0. ESPN+ feed finally starts working properly after the final whistle. Germany needs to get all their soccer content moved to a new streamer in the US, this has been going on for years with both DFB Pokal and Bundesliga matches.
Hannover took out Hamburg 1-0 yesterday. Both could have had a few more goals, especially Hamburg with two missed open nets and two posts. Gladbach's 2-3 loss at home to Leverkusen is why I like the Bundesliga so much. And now onto the Goal Arena to watch 5 games "at once" through ESPN+.
Augsburg and Werder Bremen putting on the most exciting match so far. Augsburg missed a sitter early, Werder Bremen scored against the run of play, and now Rexhbecaj levels it with a goal of the week frontrunner in the 16th minute.
A goal for Mainz to go up 1-0 over Union. Freiburg turns it all the way around and goes up 2-1 over Stuttgart. Werder Bremen ties it up 2-2 in the 58th minute in Augsburg. The ball bounces around in the box a bit and Leipzig scores off the scramble to go up 1-0 in the 59th minute. Goals in all the games so far.
Freiburg jumps up to 3-1 on a corner that Stuttgart decided not to defend. Holstein Kiel gets their first Bundesliga goal and cut it to 2-1 at Hoffenheim.
Insanity at Hoffenheim where Kiel went a man down on a second yellow, Hoffenheim scored to go up 3-1, and Kiel scored to cut it to 3-2 heading into stoppage time.
RB Leipzig 1 - 0 Bochum Hoffenheim 3 - 2 Holstein Kiel Freiburg 3 - 1 Stuttgart Augsburg 2 - 2 Werder Bremen Mainz 1 - 1 Union Berlin Great start to the league year so far and a very intriguing Dortmund v Frankfurt match on the dockets in about 1 hour.