Bundesliga back with a bang as Wolfsburg and Köln burst into life | Andy Brassell

Bundesliga back with a bang as Wolfsburg and Köln burst into life | Andy Brassell

23-Jan-2023 14:30:34 | The Guardian

There were over 40 goals across the weekend as the league returned from its winter break in brilliant but chaotic fashion

You know when a driver, frustrated in traffic, finally sees a stretch of open road and blazes off with inappropriate and unwarranted speed into the middle distance? Welcome back, the Bundesliga. German football’s first domestic action in nearly 10 weeks was a dizzying assault on the senses, a torrent of copper from an arcade coin pusher machine, a stream of consciousness from a chatterbox that has been starved of company and has stayed silent all day.

It all started on Friday night in Leipzig, where fireworks were expected in a face off between the league’s two best teams. Instead, the visit of Bayern was more about measure and respectful distances. After a bleak midwinter of fretting over a replacement for the injured Manuel Neuer, the champions bedded in Yann Sommer, signed on Thursday and making his debut, characteristically unruffled, the day after. It was an alarm-free first game for the Swiss goalkeeper, though he could do little about Marcel Halstenberg’s second-half equaliser.

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