This weekend’s Top-Spiel did exactly what the showpiece should – to an extent. Saturday’s early-evening Bundesliga match is positioned as the crown jewel of the weekend but even if a gripping draw between Leipzig and Bayern Munich ostensibly ticked all the boxes of entertainment and intrigue, the stomach still continued to rumble afterwards. This was a match and an occasion that, rather than delivering a statement, authored far more questions than answers.
With all manner of exciting talent on the field at Red Bull Arena this was played under the shadow of Max Eberl, abruptly fired by Leipzig on Friday with the club statement citing a “lack of commitment” which implied to many failing to sufficiently distance himself from speculation linking him with Bayern (whose interest in Eberl, to be clear, far predated his arrival at Leipzig). Oliver Mintzlaff, the club’s managing director, even went as far as to call his appointment of Eberl “a misjudgment” during his Saturday night appearance on ZDF’s Das Aktuelle Sportstudio.
The sporting director’s exit is unlikely to cause major tremors at the club’s Cottaweg headquarters in the short term, with Rouven Schröder already on staff and handily placed to pick up the slack. There are no major issues with the team, whose first-half performance here was a compelling one, after which they led 2-0 at the break. This is not a club in crisis before Wednesday’s visit of perennial Champions League adversaries Manchester City.
The model is very different to Bayern’s but it is clear that like the serial champions, the philosophy to act decisively and without emotion is strongly ingrained. It had been less than 10 months since Eberl had started work at Leipzig and he crammed a lot into that time, including an on-the-fly rebuild after the mini-exodus led escalated by the departures of Dominik Szoboszlai and Joško Gvardiol. Eberl’s work in the summer window is hard to argue with, underlined by how they picked up here where they left off in their Super Cup in Munich, when they expertly picked off Bayern. Marco Rose, the head coach and a good friend of Eberl’s, talked of how the sporting director’s departure took him by “surprise”.
While Eberl may well end up at Bayern as the eventual Hasan Salihamidžić replacement, it won’t be without cost. He is contracted to Leipzig until 2026 and, as Bayern made clear to clubs approaching Julian Nagelsmann in the summer, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The release fee is likely to be several million euros. Yet Mintzlaff’s “commitment” barb wasn’t all about Bayern. There was frustration that Eberl didn’t spend as much time at Cottaweg and cultivate relationships with the players, as he might have done. A weekend report in Bild said the club were frustrated that in his initial discussions with Leipzig he had “talked about himself, his travels and his illness (that caused him to leave Borussia Mönchengladbach) instead of about his new club”, as well as the perception that he had not driven a hard enough bargain in some deals – notably the purchase of Loïs Openda, a club-record buy which could eventually cost €49m.
The briefing of grievances is not entirely dissimilar to Bayern’s mop-up after letting Nagelsmann go. Their direction is also not entirely clear, even after the second-half comeback led by Harry Kane’s penalty and a Leroy Sané leveller. Bayern were uncertain in the first half and if the players are not following the plan from the off; “maybe it’s a shit plan”, reflected Thomas Tuchel to ESPN’s Archie Rhind-Tutt at full-time. If Leipzig had been able to maintain their intensity after the interval, Tuchel would have been struggling to explain away more than a half of listless, leaden football. Again.
Welcoming in Eberl, or somebody like him, would certainly fill a need. The expected short-term deal for Jérôme Boateng, who has been training at Säbener Straße for a while, underlines both how thin Bayern are in some areas of the squad and their lack of planning and clarity in terms of recruitment. Even if he had gone through a full pre-season, which he hasn’t, nobody who has seen Boateng play in the last two years would think he remains anywhere approaching the standard they need. This is a Hail Mary.
Quite what an authentic Salihamidžić replacement would do to the status quo is open to interpretation. Cristoph Freund, who arrived as sporting director last month after developing a plethora of talent at Salzburg, looked awkward when asked the Eberl question after the game. Where it would leave Tuchel is worth asking too. He was given more transfer influence than a Bayern coach usually would be this summer because of the power vacuum. He has been able to project more uncertainty publicly than would normally be permitted from a Bayern coach too, partly because of the transitional environment. If he is only required to coach the team in 2024 and they still stutter, what will be left to save him? Having taken such a big step in getting rid of Nagelsmann, Bayern may then look foolish getting rid of him too quickly – though it is a decision that could simply be pinned on the previous regime.
Walking the tightrope between swagger and stumbles makes for quite the spectacle. We can expect plenty more entertainment from both Leipzig and Bayern this season.
Talking points
• While confusion reigned in Saxony, the best team in the Bundesliga at the moment got it done and took their rightful place at the top. Leverkusen cruised to an easy 3-0 win at Mainz – though Xabi Alonso, hinting at the standards that have skyrocketed under him, complained that his side “did almost nothing” to control the game – before next week’s derby with Köln, who are second bottom and still winless after a home defeat by Stuttgart. This was champion stuff. Victor Boniface and Florian Wirtz didn’t shine like in recent weeks but second-half goals by the outstanding Alex Grimaldo (with another perfect free-kick) and Jonas Hofmann sealed the game.
Hoffenheim 1-3 Dortmund, Leipzig 2-2 Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg 2-0 Eintracht, Mainz 0-3 Bayer Leverkusen, Cologne 0-2 Stuttgart, Bochum 1-3 Mönchengladbach, Heidenheim 1-0 Union Berlin, Freiburg 2-0 Augsburg, Darmstadt 4-2 Werder Bremen
• Stuttgart didn’t rely on their big star either, with a late double by Deniz Undav, on loan from Brighton, sealing the deal at Köln’s RheinEnergie Stadion to propel them into second. Much of the post-match chatter concerned former sporting director Sven Mislintat, fired by Ajax last week over potential conflicts of interest in his transfer dealings, with successor Fabian Wohlgemuth telling Sport 1 Doppelpass on Sunday that “the end is in sight” for VfB’s internal inquiry into Mislintat’s dealings at the club.
• Borussia Dortmund, remarkably, had been overnight leaders from Friday to Saturday after a 3-1 victory at Hoffenheim which didn’t thrill, but was all the more satisfying for showing the grit to dig it out at a side on a run of four straight wins. The unlikely figure of Julian Ryerson got the clincher with a tremendous solo goal at the end. “We were all laughing our heads off on the bench,” confessed Niclas Füllkrug, having opened the scoring with his first for the club and then later been substituted. “We all rubbed our eyes and said: ‘Was that really Ryerson?’”
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayer Leverkusen | 6 | 14 | 16 |
| 2 | Stuttgart | 6 | 12 | 15 |
| 3 | Bayern Munich | 6 | 14 | 14 |
| 4 | Borussia Dortmund | 6 | 6 | 14 |
| 5 | RB Leipzig | 6 | 10 | 13 |
| 6 | Hoffenheim | 6 | 4 | 12 |
| 7 | Wolfsburg | 6 | 3 | 12 |
| 8 | Freiburg | 6 | -3 | 10 |
| 9 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 6 | -1 | 7 |
| 10 | Heidenheim | 6 | -3 | 7 |
| 11 | Union Berlin | 6 | -1 | 6 |
| 12 | Werder Bremen | 6 | -4 | 6 |
| 13 | Borussia M'gladbach | 6 | -3 | 5 |
| 14 | Augsburg | 6 | -6 | 5 |
| 15 | Darmstadt | 6 | -8 | 4 |
| 16 | VfL Bochum | 6 | -14 | 3 |
| 17 | Cologne | 6 | -7 | 1 |
| 18 | Mainz | 6 | -13 | 1 |
