There’s one thing my coach never tired of saying to me: “Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!” – best translated with: “Just slam it into the back of the net!” What did yours used to say to you? What about this one: “Let’s sit down and watch three weekend’s games.” Back in the 1980s, that would have been feasible – back in the days before pay-TV, the 24-7 media society and the commercialisation of football.

In some ways, the last two match-days of the Bundesliga are still like they were back then. Nostalgic types love the fact that all the games start together at 15:30 in order to ensure fair competition; none of these modern “days” of play that stretch over entire weekends. No, on these last two match-days all the results are in by Saturday 17:20 and the table has been adjusted accordingly. And just like back in the 80s, all of this is rounded up by the former medium of choice, the ARD network’s “Sportsschau” programme. This show is a dream for old-fashioned types who get annoyed by all the adverts and silly quizzes on today’s sports shows. Back then, you had expert commentary from functionaries of football like Ernst Huberty, Klaus Schwarze and Addi Furler: they had a relaxed, quiet and almost stoical way of presenting the events of the afternoon. Then again, there’s no grounds for too much nostalgia, since viewers back then counted themselves lucky to get excerpts from three matches – all the other results were simply read out, which would be unthinkable nowadays, along with the rest of the show, which used to consist of a seemingly random mix of other sports like racing and synchronised swimming. So anyone who really likes football must admit that the programming is better today – if this were the 80s, fans wouldn’t have seen much of the action from this, the 33rd matchday of this year’s Bundesliga.

One major piece of action: Bayern München are now the German champions. With a 3:1 victory against VfL Bochum (all three goals coming from Thomas Müller), the lads from Munich secured the league cup for the 22nd time, allowing these record-holders to celebrate a week early and gather momentum for second leg of the Champions League final, where they will have quite some catching-up to do. After all, three points and 17 goals should be enough to say with almost complete certainty that Bayern have won – but they’re forgetting that Schalke 04 are quite obviously going to win their last game against Mainz 05 by 18 goals to zero whilst the Bayern boys take a pounding in Berlin. After all, Mainz have nothing left to fight for and Schalke, despite having lost 0:2 to Werder Bremen this weekend, will be on a mission. Now, Schalke really don’t deserve the title, having failed to hold the lead they had over Bayern and losing the decisive head-to-head game against them, but I think they’re going to get it. The fans know it too, with them giving trainer Felix Magath standing ovations for their surprisingly good season, despite the loss to Bremen. The Schalke fans can see the future and that 18:0 victory next week.

After their win, Werder Bremen are now in third place, just ahead of Bayer Leverkusen, who have the season’s record for games-not-lost but who are hanging their heads in shame after a 1:1 draw against Hertha BSC. Bremen and Leverkusen will surely be pushed down the table by Borussia Dortmund next week though; while the Dortmunders may only have a 1:1 draw against Wolfsburg to show for their efforts on this 33rd match-day, they’re guaranteed to win 19:0 against Freiburg next week. After all, Freiburg are still going to be hung-over from celebrating the fact that they have secured their place in the league for next year after drawing 2:2 against Cologne: they may have the smallest budget of all the Bundesliga teams, but they stuck with their coach Robin Dutt and kept in the running, leaving Hannover, Nuremberg and Bochum to fight in out to avoid the second relegation spot and stay in the league.

Hannover won 6:1 (yes, that’s six whole goals!) against Mönchengladbach and so are currently best placed to avoid dropping. Nuremberg’s attackers are the weakest in the Bundesliga at the moment and accordingly failed to score as they lost 0:4 to Hamburg, keeping them on the relegation spot for the time being. Bochum and Hannover, however, will be playing one another on the last day, making their game into the real decider whilst FC Nürnberg hope for a win against Cologne.

The first relegation is already decided, though. Hertha BSC Berlin are going down. Despite their good second leg (scoring 18 points), their disastrous first leg only gave them six points. It was only once they found someone experienced in fighting against relegation in the form of Friedhelm Funkel that the team was stabilised and things started to improve; but they didn’t improve enough. Amazingly enough, this poor performance will have no repercussions for the manager Michael Preetz, who will continue in office in the second league next year. And this despite the shameful fact that Hertha BSC Berlin was a founding member of the Bundesliga, has been in it without interruption since 1997 and is now leaving it as the only European football premier league without representation from the nation’s capital…

(Stefan Reichart / Brian Melican)

Results Matchday 33:
Borussia Dortmund – VfL Wolfsburg 1:1
Bayer Leverkusen – Hertha BSC Berlin 1:1
Eintracht Frankfurt – 1899 Hoffenheim 1:2
FC Schalke 04 – Werder Bremen 0:2
Bayern München – VfL Bochum 3:1
Hannover 96 – Borussia Mönchengladbach 6:1
1. FC Köln – SC Freiburg 2:2
VfB Stuttgart – 1. FSV Mainz 05 2:2
Hamburger SV – 1. FC Nürnberg 4:0

Table:
1 Bayern München 67 P
2 FC Schalke 04 64 P
3 Werder Bremen 60 P
4 Bayer Leverkusen 58 P
5 Borussia Dortmund 57 P
6 VfB Stuttgart 54 P
7 Hamburger SV 51 P
8 VfL Wolfsburg 47 P
9 Eintracht Frankfurt 46 P
10 1. FSV Mainz 05 46 P
11 1899 Hoffenheim 41 P
12 1. FC Köln 38 P
13 Borussia Mönchengladbach 38 P
14 SC Freiburg 32 P
15 Hannover 96 30 P
16 1. FC Nürnberg 28 P
17 VfL Bochum 28 P
18 Hertha BSC Berlin 24 P