The German football season is now about halfway done with the DFB-Pokal (German football cup) in the quarterfinals stage, the UEFA Champions league in the round of 16, and with most Bundesliga teams having played 19 of their 34 seasonal games. Today, I would like to look at the current status of all of these competitions and predict how I think they will all end. Since both the Champions League and the DFB-Pokal rely on a lottery system, where matchups are drawn for each new round randomly instead of organized in a bracket-style system, I will not predict the bracket, only who I think will win. Keep in mind, in Bundesliga play a win is 3 points, a tie is 1 point, and a loss is 0 points.
Bundesliga
The top of the table:
Currently, Bayern München sits atop the table with 46 points through 19 games and a record of 14-1-4 while accumulating the best goal differential in the Bundesliga (+31). In a surprisingly close second place, RB Leipzig has 42 points and are poised to make a run towards the first place spot. The third and fourth place spots are held by Eintracht Frankfurt (35 pts) and Borussia Dortmund (34 pts). While RB Leipzig has been the Leicester City-esque cinderella story of this Bundesliga season, I just do not see them holding onto second place or challenging for first much longer. The final standings for the top 4, I predict, will be as follows:
- Bayern München
- Borussia Dortmund
- RB Leipzig
- FC Köln
Bayern Munich has lost less than 5 games each of the last 3 seasons, averaging 3 losses a season over the same span. I would be hard-pressed to see this change since they still hold one of, if not the most, talented lineups in football. Borussia Dortmund should sneak into that second spot in the last few weeks of the Bundesliga season due to the talent on their team. Marco Reus is back and healthy and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is the top goal scorer in Bundesliga to date for the season. If they can avoid losing more than 1 more game this season, I can see them sneaking into first, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Lastly, I believe FC Köln should sneak into that Champions League Qualifying spot over Frankfurt, Hoffenheim, and Herta BSC. Currently, they are only 2 points out of that 4th place spot, and have shown resilience in key ties against Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, and complete demolishment of the lower-table teams. Not to mention, they have Anthony Modeste on their team and that always helps.
Relegation:
Currently, Darmstadt and Ingolstadt are slated for relegation, with Hamburger SV in the position to play against the 3rd place Bundesliga 1 team in the relegation playoff. I predict that this will stay the same for the rest of the season, as the teams directly above these three in the table (Werder Bremen and Wolfsburg) are teams that I just cannot see getting relegated after making their presence known in Bundesliga the past few years.
DFB-Pokal
The final eight teams have been decided: Borussia Dortmund, Bayern München, Schalke 04, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Hamburger SV, Frankfurt, Arminia Bielefeld, and Sportfreunde Lotte. Unfortunately for the other 6 teams in the DFB-Pokal, I don’t see the final going towards any match-up except Bayern München and Borussia Dortmund. Both teams are the face of German football and are experiencing amazing runs of form. With Reus back and healthy, I don’t see anything standing in their path to the final. With Bayern’s experience in European play and major tournaments, it’s hard to pick against them to go all the way. As long as the draw plays out accordingly, I would love to see these teams meet in the final. However, there is no saying it will, so my predicted winner is:
Borussia Dortmund
As I mentioned before, Dortmund has the top goal scorer in Bundesliga play, a healthy Marco Reus that can do just about anything, and a recent push towards the top spots in the table. Borussia Dortmund is also the ONLY team this year to beat the dynasty of German football, Bayern München. Not to mention, if they reach the cup final this year, it will be the third year in a row that they have done so. They should bring home the cup, but not without challenges along the way.
UEFA Champions League
Oh the wonderful Champions League! Every year seems to bring a new battle and there have been all Spanish matchups in the final and all German matchups in the final in recent memory. Here are my predictions for the matchups in the round of 16:
- Manchester City def. Monaco
- Real Madrid def. Napoli
- Borussia Dortmund def. Benfica
- Bayern Munich def. Arsenal
- Juventus def. Porto
- Bayer Leverkusen def. Atletico Madrid
- Barca def. PSG
- Leicester City def. Sevilla
Unluckily for me, I am probably destined to have guessed at least 4 of these matchups wrong. However, I’ll address who all I think have the best chance to win and who all I think have the least chance to win:
Slim chance to win it all:
Leicester City - Sorry, but Leicester is playing a lot different than they did in their championship season last year
Juventus - The constant UEFA champions league appearances, but no trophies to show for them recently. The last time Juventus won the Champions League was in 1996, and I do not see them being successful 21 years later.
Manchester City - Manchester City have not been on top of European football recently and I just don't see it happening this year. Non-Premier League teams have recently dominated the competition more than Premier League teams.
Decent Chance to win it all:
Real Madrid - Normally, I would put this team in the “Great chance” category but they have endured a terrible stretch of form as of late, causing me to heavily consider the possibility that Napoli could very well upset them in the Round of 16.
Borussia Dortmund - They’re back to their roots but I don’t know that they can topple the greats remaining in the round of 16. When they made it to the championship game a few years ago they collapsed at the hands of Bayern München, and I just don’t know if they have the chops to go back to the championship yet, especially since Dortmund has a history of losing games they are favored to win
Bayer Leverkusen - There’s always “that” team. I think they have the power to be “that” team.
Great chance to win it all:
Barca - Barca has the best attacking trio in football currently. Messi and Neymar alone are unstoppable. I would not be surprised to see them win the Champions League this year.
My Predicted Champion:
Bayern München - It is just incredibly hard to pick against these guys right now, especially with Lewandowski at the forward position. He has already had a game this Bundesliga season where he scored 5 goals in under 15 minutes and I feel like there is the ability to see more spectacular things from him in this Champions League tournament. I would not pick against these guys the way they are playing.
Conflicts of Interest: Borussia Dortmund is my favorite team. However, I believe I viewed everything objectively.
