Opinion: Bundesliga - are you not entertained?
January 18, 2020
If the Bundesliga were a meme, it would be Maximus Meridius asking us if we were not entertained.
There were 34 goals scored on the first matchday of the new decade. Eight were scored in Augsburg, three by teenager Erling Haaland on his debut and four in a crazy 13 minutes after the restart. Bayern scored four in Berlin, Leverkusen did the same in Paderborn.
On Saturday evening, RB Leipzig put three past Union Berlin, which means they have now scored at least three goals in nine consecutive games in the league - a Bundesliga record. This league is bonkers.
Jhon Cordoba's first for Cologne was not just a momentous moment for the side battling relegation, it was also goal number 500 in the Bundesliga this season. At that point in the day, the Bundesliga boasted 3.22 goals per match this season, making Germany's top flight the highest-scoring league in Europe's top five.
Admittedly, a glut of goals doesn't say much about the defending, which had more than its fair share of forgettable moments on matchday 18, but it does make this league a lot of fun to watch.
RB Leipzig fan or not, Timo Werner's first goal was an incredible display of technique. Haaland's first and last goals were proof that age matters little when the quality is good enough, while Marco Richter hit one of the cleanest goals you'll see all season in the same game. It was a weekend of brilliant ball striking.
Beyond the obvious and outstanding quality of Robert Lewandowski and Timo Werner, who have already combined for 40 goals so far this season, there are a host of strikers to enjoy watching. Marcus Thuram has hit the ground running at Gladbach, Florian Niederlechner is continuing in Augsburg where he left off in Freiburg, and both Bas Dost and Nils Petersen haven't lost their edge either.
And Haaland's only just started.
Some of these goals will be lost in defeats, but many are the reason the Bundesliga continues to be unpredictable. The top six is closer than ever at the turn of the season, and the relegation battle is wide open. That cliche about anyone being able to beat anyone really does apply here.
Questions about the overall quality will remain, especially as long as Bundesliga sides struggle in Europe, but there's no denying this domestic season is a drama hard to look away from.
"You should see the Bundesliga. Fifty-thousand fans... watching every movement," to paraphrase Proximo. "The silence before you strike and the noise afterwards. It rises. It rises up... like a storm. As if you were the thunder god himself."