Daily Schmankerl: Bundesliga recap, David Abraham knocks over Christian Streich, cliques in Bayern’s locker room, and more!

Bundesliga: Gladbach builds 4-point lead in 1st place

The story on Sunday was Borussia Mönchengladbach’s 3-1 victory over Werder Bremen. Gladbach took a 2-0 lead after twenty minutes. A goal by Yuya Osako for Bremen minutes later was nullified by VAR. Werder got more into the game and even won a penalty early in the second half, but Yan Sommer saved it. Then a second goal by Patrick Herrmann effectively ended Bremen’s hopes. Leonardo Bittencourt scored a cosmetic goal for Werder in stoppage time after goal-scorer Ramy Bensebaini was sent off for a second yellow card.

Bayer Leverkusen secured an important 2-0 victory against Wolfsburg, leaping ahead of the Wolves into 8th place on the table, separated from them by a single point.

The final game of the matchday was the rockiest. Eintracht Frankfurt went down to ten men after Gelson Fernandes was sent off at the end of the first half. Nils Petersen finally scored for the hosts in the 77th minute, assisted by Luca Waldschmidt. That result held until the end of the game, but it came to a benches-clearing end, when Eintracht captain David Abraham collided with Christian Streich, knocking him down. When the dust settled, Abraham was duly sent off with a red card. Freiburg’s Vincenzo Grifo, who shoved Abraham’s face in the ensuing brawl, also was shown the red card after a VAR review, and Freiburg’s assistant coach Florian Bruns saw the yellow card.

With yet another solid result, Freiburg climbed to 4th place, a Champions League spot, with 21 points, tied with and behind only on goal difference! Eintracht drops to 9th place.

David Abraham sent off for colliding with Christian Streich

Bayern Munich honors the memory of Robert Enke

Robert Enke was a German goalkeeper who played predominantly for Hannover 96 and was also called up to the German national team. He stunned Germany on November 10, 2009, when he took his own life after struggling with depression after the death of his young daughter in 2006. Every November 10th, the Bundesliga honors the memory of Enke and agitates for awareness of the struggle with depression. Bayern also honored Enke with a moment of silence on Saturday.

The Bayern Bunch (Bild)

Bild published a story with the tantalizing headline asking “Why Müller doesn’t do much with his colleagues.” Why, you wonder? Because he lives well outside of Munich, so he’s simply not around to hang out. Most of Bild’s story simply recounts what we know or could already infer about the various players’ relationships. The young Germans hang out together, the French have a connection, Coutinho likes Thiago (who speaks Portuguese) and so on.

Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola face off!

Pep was rather irate at the officiating team after Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool beat Manchester City 3-1, claiming another three points to make their total 34 and extending their lead at the top of the Premier League table by 8 points over Leicester City and Chelsea. Man City is in fourth with 25 points, but is not in real danger, being another full 8 points ahead of Sheffield and Arsenal.