Winter title up for grabs in Germany

Posted Saturday, December 19, 2009 by soccer365.com

Three clubs are fighting it out for the unofficial title of Bundesliga winter champions, which will be decided this weekend.

Schalke have the first chance to stake their claim when they host Mainz on Saturday evening, although their coach Felix Magath does not believe being top of the table would be a situation that would endure anyway.

"The team is still not stable enough so you cannot expect us to be up there at the end," he said.

Bayer Leverkusen are currently leading the way, backed by the only remaining unbeaten record in German football.

A win for them against Borussia Monchengladbach on Saturday would clinch top spot at the midway stage of the season, no matter how Schalke or the third rivals for the crown, Bayern Munich, get on this weekend.

But their coach Jupp Heynckes is also not so desperate to be top of the pile over the winter break.

"This title means nothing to me," he said. "You have got to be at the top at the end of the season."

That leaves Bayern Munich, and their coach Louis van Gaal would like nothing more than to move to the top of the table for the first time since he took over last summer.

Bayern host Hertha Berlin, who have not won since the opening day of the season, but only a win for the Bavarians would give them a chance of ending the year at the summit.

"It has been 50 weeks since we were last top of the table so it would be good to be there again," Van Gaal told the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

The race for positions behind the top three is equally open with Hamburg and Werder Bremen, who are locked together in fourth and fifth place on 28 points, meeting in the northern derby at the HSV-Arena.

Sixth-placed Borussia Dortmund can move above one or both of them with a win over Freiburg, with 80,000 fans expected to turn out for the club's centenary celebrations at the Westfalen Stadion on Saturday.

Elsewhere, Eintracht Frankfurt and Wolfsburg will both be looking to remain in touch with the race for places in Europe when they meet at the Waldstadion, which is the aim of Hoffenheim too for their trip to Stuttgart.

Saturday's other game sees Hannover host Bochum while Cologne and Nurnberg cross swords in a relegation battle on Sunday evening in the final Bundesliga game of 2009.