Six days before the end of the championship, Bayern Munich stalled on Saturday by conceding the draw against Hoffenheim (1-1) on their lawn, but Borussia Dortmund did not take advantage of it, also forced into a draw in Stuttgart (3-3).
On the evening of the 28th day, Thomas Tuchel’s Bayern retain their two-point lead over Borussia (59 against 57), but did not really reassure against the poorly ranked Hoffenheim in their Allianz Arena, four days from receiving Manchester City in the quarter-final return of the Champions League (3-0 for the Citizens in the first leg).
To hope to climb into the last four of the queen competition of European football, the Munich people will have to score at least three goals, and the offensive performance against Hoffenheim has reason to worry Bayern supporters, especially during the first 45 minutes.
Still without his Cameroonian center-forward Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, in the recovery phase and hoped for Wednesday against City, Thomas Tuchel once again aligned Serge Gnabry at the forefront of the Munich attack without much success.
The changes made to the hour of play by Tuchel (Mathys Tel and Jamal Musiala for Kingsley Coman and Leroy Sané, in particular) brought a little more dangerous situations.
As in Freiburg last week, the flaw in the Hoffenheim defense came from a Bavarian defender. On a corner from Joshua Kimmich badly negotiated by the defense of Hoffenheim, Coman was able to shoot at the entrance to the surface. His crushed strike found Benjamin Pavard who could open the scoring for the reigning ten-time German champions.
After a double in Munich against Augsburg for the 24th day in mid-March, the French international confirms his good form at the moment, he who also scored with the Blues in Ireland in qualifying for Euro-2024 at the end of March.
– Dortmund cracks against Stuttgart –
Bayern, who played without Sadio Mané, suspended by the club following his altercation with Leroy Sané in Manchester, suffered in the second half and Hoffenheim logically equalized on a direct free kick from Andrej Kramaric in the 71st minute.
In Stuttgart, Dortmund did not take advantage of the boulevard opened by the Munich residents to return to equality at the top of the Bundesliga, in a completely crazy match.
Edin Terzic’s men led by two goals in the first period through Sébastien Haller (26th) and Donyell Malen (34th) and evolved almost an hour in numerical superiority after the exclusion of Konstantinos Mavrapanos (39th). But they saw Stuttgart come back to score through Tanguy Coulibaly (77th) and Josha Vagnoman (84th), and regained the advantage in added time in the second half through Giovanni Reyna (90+2).
But they failed to hold on to the lead in the interminable stoppage time and it was Silas who equalized for Stuttgart in the seventh minute after extra time.
These two points will hurt Dortmund, who had so far only lost five points in 2023 in the Bundesliga (31 out of 36), including their defeat on the lawn of the Allianz Arena on April 1 during the Klassiker against the Bayern Munich (4-2).
Behind the leading duo, Leipzig won on their lawn against Augsburg (3-2) thanks in particular to a double from their German striker Timo Werner.
Still deprived of Christopher Nkunku, Leipzig climbs to the Bundesliga podium with 51 points, pending the Union Berlin match on Sunday (5:30 p.m.) against Bochum, who can regain their three-point lead over Leipzig in the event of a victory.
