Bundesliga 2024/25 - Next season it will be bigger - This season it will be better

Essen feeling the frustrating side effects of losing a mid-field engine like Piljic, continue to struggle re-creating the type of effective fast transition football that allowed them to score the goals that propeled them to a 4th place finish last season.

And while Essen struggle to compensate for the loss of such an important element to their mid-field, it also appears Leverkusen have seen the major benefits of what Piljic can provide to teams, alongside them introducing a host of other names who've stood out for them this season too.

Changing to a 4-4-2 now, where youngster Kramer and a more experienced Kehrer lead their attack, seeing Kögel shine within a mid-field system where she's basically a 4th CM/AM, during a season they've also lost Hansen to injury, and still found a way to improve their defence by bringing a consistently impressive Ostermeier into the starting 11 as a CB next to an equally impressive Turanyi.

I'd still argue Bender the one Leverkusen player I can see a period of good luck with injuries away from developing into a genuinely elite international level player. But I'd repeat.... for someone who doesn't even make a lot of successful tackles as a DM, Piljic has been the one who's quietly established herself as one of the key elements of Leverkusen's continued success this season.

So...Leverkusen remains a strange team for me, simply because they comprise a squad of various underrated talents all functioning at a higher than expected level of play; where should Hansen have been healthy, I honestly believe they'd have a back 4 of strong senior internationals talent, with a mid-field and an attack deep enough they don't even need KLV to start anymore...

If they manage to keep the core of this side together for two more years, and find a way to score 8-10 more goals a season... it sounds crazy, but we might be in a time line Leverkusen become a genuine UWCL 3rd place contender...

 

This could allow Galatasaray to conquer a draw under a blanket of snow...

 

Not impossible at all.

 

Wolfsburg had 51 shots on goal against Galatasaray, let that sink in.

 

51 SHOTS, only 21 ON TARGET in a 5 - 0 victory.....


Is it fair to say Wolfsburg's attack lacks a little efficiency lol.

 

Right, I know but 51 shots on goal in a game is extremely rare and shows the big gap between the two teams.

 

it's a Galatasaray's thing: if I remember well, Roma had a similar number of shots against then, maybe even more.

 

Roma had 45 shots on goal against them but scored 6 goals instead of 5. It just means that on average Wolfsburg had more than 2 shots on goal per minute in their game against Galatasaray which is a bit insane when you think about it.

 

He probably meant one shot each 2 minutes.

 

I totally meant one shot each 2 minutes, sorry about that. It's still a lot.

The German commentator keeps pronouncing Valerenga as 'Volare-enga' instead of 'Vohrena' as its pronounced.