Bundesliga

2022 - 3 - 16

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Image courtesy of "ESPN"

Premier League title, Serie A title, Bundesliga top four Ranking 10 ... (ESPN)

The 2021-22 European season is winding down and while some leagues are snoozing to the finish line, here are 10 races worth watching until the end.

Ajax has spent much of 2021-22 playing like one of the best teams in Europe, winning their six Champions League group stage matches by a combined 20-5 and outscoring opponents 70-5 in their first 23 Eredivisie matches. For much of the season, bitter rivals Marseille and Nice have been jockeying for second, but after a dreadful winter stretch -- they pulled just nine points from nine league matches from Dec. 1 through Feb. 11 -- Bruno Genesio's Rennes have found their form. In their last six matches, however, they've lost 2-1 at Go Ahead Eagles, survived 3-2 wins over inferior RKC Waalwijk and SC Cambuur squads and suffered an upset at the hands of Benfica in the Champions League knockout stage. Their 4-2 win over Lyon on Sunday was their fourth straight in league play, and it bumped them back to fourth place, within a point of Marseille and Nice. Strasbourg is only three points back as well. QPR bounced between the first and second divisions early in the 2010s, but have otherwise lived a second-division existence for most of 30 years. This is a great position to be in, obviously, but they'll still have to survive the championship playoff in which the top four teams see their point totals cut in half (and rounded up) and everyone plays a six-game round robin. They finished a distant third behind Chelsea and Manchester City, and they had to hold off a rising Manchester United just to secure third place and a spot in the Champions League qualifiers. With the money involved in playing in the Premier League, this is always one of the tenser and more dread-heavy relegation battles in the sport. Huddersfield briefly earned promotion in 2017 for the first time in nearly a half-century, but they were back down within two years. They rank first (City) and second (Liverpool) in the overall SPI ratings, with Liverpool creeping ahead of a previously indomitable Bayern Munich. But they've leaked a lot of points lately and they find themselves four points behind Milan, one back of Napoli and only three up on Juventus with a game in hand. RB Leipzig have solved a lot of their disastrous transition issues in recent weeks, and while neither Freiburg nor Hoffenheim defend very well (even by Bundesliga standards) they boast major attacking firepower and have proven they can take points from the league's best teams.

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American defender George Bello 'starstruck' in Bundesliga (Daily Union)

BERLIN (AP) โ€” American defender George Bello says he is โ€œstarstruckโ€ to be facing players like Erling Haaland and Robert Lewandowski after securing a move ...

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How Hoffenheim established themselves as a Bundesliga force from ... (ESPN)

In this edition of his weekly column, ESPN's lead Bundesliga commentator Derek Rae examines TSG Hoffenheim 's push for a Champions League return by ...

Hoeness, a former Hoffenheim player, is certainly an excellent fit for all the qualities the club seek to embody, but the direction the club is heading in starts with Rosen at a time when Hopp has cut back his financial commitments to TSG. Richards, who's back on loan from Bayern this season, has had his ups and downs -- and injuries, too -- but the main thing is he's learning and developing in the right ambience. Not because the son of Dieter and nephew of Uli is a bad coach -- on the contrary -- but to emphasise that the environment under Rosen is the key to the club's success. Rosen will be the first to acknowledge that the planning aspect has changed from his early years when players would come and go with greater frequency. The truth is that Hoffenheim are far better placed to deal with player absences than most of their competitors. Merely grinding out results and treading water from season to season is never going to be the Rosen way.

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