Three things we learnt from Bundesliga Matchday 28 afternoon kick-offs – Wolfsburg look destined for the drop, Bayern Munich leave it late and Hoffenheim stall in the race for Europe | OneFootball

The Bundesliga returns after the March international break, and it is back with a bumper Saturday of games as it is Easter Weekend.

As regulations in Germany do not allow any Bundesliga games to happen on Good Friday, Saturday afternoon provided us with six games: Freiburg vs Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen vs Wolfsburg, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Hamburg vs Augsburg, Hoffenheim vs Mainz and Werder Bremen vs RB Leipzig.

Here are the three things we learnt:

Wolfsburg look destined for relegation:

In the most entertaining game of the weekend, Bayer Leverkusen came from behind to beat Wolfsburg 6-3. 

It was an end-to-end game right from the start, with three penalties and Dieter Hecking’s side throwing away a 3-1 lead. Considering the results around the grounds, this is a big loss for the Bundesliga winners in 2009.

Ironically, this was probably one of Wolfsburg’s better performances in recent weeks, but after Patrik Schick equalised just after half-time, they full-on collapsed. However, week by week, they are running out of time, and the teams around them continue to pick up points; they look more and more destined to spend next season in the 2.Bundesliga.  

A rather damning scene from the game was when Vinicius Souza and Mohamed Amoura had to be held apart from Konstantinos Koulierakis after conceding the fourth Leverkusen goal. 

That should just tell you that the vibes are bad in the Autostadt, and as Football Manager players know, bad vibes do not help your results.

Bayern Munich leave it late to break 100 goals:

It seemed to be one of those games for Bayern, where (as much as they wouldn’t admit it), their focus was clearly on Real Madrid in midweek, plus the absence of Harry Kane also did not help. 

Against Freiburg, they were 2-0 down with 10 minutes of the game left, which also opened the door to the prospect that if Dortmund beat Stuttgart, the gap would be six points with six games left…

However, Tom Bischof and Lennart Karl would both rescue the team. The latter with more or less two identical goals to level it for the Bundesliga leaders, then the latter with more or less an open goal to make it 3-2.

The most important thing with that goal is that it broke the 100-goal mark for Bayern. Which means they are only one goal away from equaling the 101 goal record from the Bundesliga 1971/72 season, which was also a season that saw Gerd Müller set the old 40 goal a season record. 

Hoffenheim stalls in the race for European football:

At the turn of the year, it looked as if Hoffenheim were a lock for the Champions League spots. However, now they have only won one of their last six games and have dropped down to fifth. 

Apart from the 5-0 loss to RB Leipzig, all the games have come against teams who are in and around the relegation zone, which, for a team that is aiming to compete in Europe, is not good enough. 

Why Hoffenheim could be experiencing this blip could be for varying reasons, such as they have been found out or they have run out of steam due to Christian Ilzer’s intense style of play. 

Elsewhere in the Bundesliga:

GGFN | Jack Meenan