Bayern Stroll On As The Chase Stalls Again

FC Bayern München have not so much built a lead as been handed one. Ten games into the Bundesliga season, the champions have 28 points from ten games, nine won and one drawn, with a goal difference of +18, and a ten-point gap to RB Leipzig, who sit second on 20. That is what happens when a side keeps winning and everyone else keeps drawing.

Bayern did not even play this weekend, and still the chasing pack failed to close in. Leipzig's 20 points come from ten games, six won and two lost, and VfL Wolfsburg have 20 from eleven after six wins and three defeats. Borussia Dortmund, on 19 from ten, have drawn four times; Hamburger SV, unbeaten with 19 from eleven, have drawn seven. Seven draws in eleven games is not a chase, it is a traffic jam. Hamburg's 1-1 at home to FC St. Pauli on Saturday was the perfect picture of it: a derby point, a derby mood, and no ground gained.

At the other end, Bayer 04 Leverkusen are sinking. Hertha Berlin beat them 1-0, and Leverkusen now have six points from twelve games, one win and eight defeats, a goal difference of -10. They are 18th. DSC Arminia Bielefeld, 16th on seven points from eleven, were taken apart 4-1 by Borussia Mönchengladbach, and 1. FC Nürnberg, 17th with seven from ten, are still waiting for a second win.

Elsewhere the weekend offered little to stir the table: 1. FC Köln and TSG Hoffenheim drew 1-1, and Sport-Club Freiburg and SpVgg Greuther Fürth played out a 0-0.

So the story of this Bundesliga is not the title race. There isn't one. It is the gap between a club that wins and a league that cannot. Bayern's run of Bundesliga titles ended after 2035/36, and the years since have been shared around. This season, ten games in, nobody is sharing anything. "We look after ourselves," is the line from Munich, and they can afford to. The rest of Germany has to ask itself why the only consistent thing in its league is the distance to first place.