“The first Ruhr derby of the season kicked off at the Signal Iduna Park with both Dortmund and Schalke looking to kick-start their stuttering campaigns. Last season’s runners-up had not come close to reaching the form they hit last season coming into this game and faced further difficulty doing so with the absence of Marco Reus in the side. In his place was 19 year old Ousmane Dembele as Dortmund switched to a 4-1-4-1 with midfield metronome Julian Wiegl in the 6 role and Götze and Kagawa operating as the 8s. It turned out to be a frustrating afternoon for the men in yellow as their rivals from the Ruhr kept them at bay throughout the entirety of the game with a fantastic defensive display in their compact 5-3-2 shape.” Outside of the Boot

“The home side started the game with their regular 4-1-4-1 formation with Weigl as the midfield anchor and Adrian Ramos leading the line. The second half saw a slight tweak in tactics from Tuchel. The team started the half with an unorthodox role for Guerreiro on the left side, a tactical aspect that we have seen Tuchel experiment with at other instances this season. Beyond the 70th minute mark, Dortmund switched to a 5-4-1, matching their opponent’s shape.” Outside of the Boot

“A potentially exciting clash between two red-hot sides: Julian Nagelsmann’s boys against Pal Dardai’s Hertha Berlin. A clash of two youngish tacticians from different generations: Nagelsmann, a 29-year old, Dardai, a 40 year old. So how did this generational clash play out?” Bundesliga Fanatic

“In a modern football landscape that sees teams hire and fire managers faster than they ever have, finding managerial stability and a good boss can be a tough task. For some clubs they have that stability, such as 1. FC Köln with Peter Stöger, Dortmund with Thomas Tuchel and Mainz with Martin Schmidt. For other teams such as Hoffenheim, finding a top class manager has been a tough task, with 8 manages serving the club since 2011. But now, it seems like Hoffenheim finally have that manager they’ve been looking for in Julian Nagelsmann, who has kept them up and now has them flying high again. Since the 29-year-old has done so much after his appointment, is he already one of the Bundesliga’s best managers?” Bundesliga Fanatic

“Augsburg have garnered somewhat of a cult following over the past two seasons, haven’t they? Their unexpected run to a fifth-placed finish and subsequent passage into the Europa League (as well as making it into the knockout stage) in 2014/2015 gave every football hipster an underdog club to claim as their own. Though they struggled mightily last season, relying on hitting during the second-half of the Ruckrunde to avoid the drop by five points come the end of the campaign, they’ve targeted this season as one to rebound through under new manager Dirk Schuster.” Outside of the Boot

“Since we are still on a rather pointless and lengthy international break, Bundesliga fans are forced to wait around, with only the occasional NationalMannschaft beatdown of the Czech Republic to keep them entertained. The break for the World Cup Qualifier, as the panel on the excellent Yellow Wall Podcast suggested, can be seen as the end of the starting phase of the Bundesliga season and thus is a nice time to look back on what trends have emerged so far.” Bundesliga Fanatic – Part 1, Part 2

“One of the best attributes of looking at passing data is the samples pile up quickly a few games into the season. While teams still have just a handful of total shots, you can break down passes almost anyway you like and still wind up with hundreds in each bucket. One thing I’ve been doing with this dats is looking at how teams progress the ball up the pitch. It’s been illuminating to me and I’d like to share some first impressions with you today. Build up across any league varies wildly, we all know this especially when we get to see Sander’s maps illustrating the variation every game.” Stats Bomb

“Junusovic with the free-kick, in to Pizarro, on to Ujah and Djilodobji, it’s in, it’s in! Never had the Weserstadion erupted to the sound of the Proclaimers’ 500 Miles quite like that last day victory over Eintracht Frankfurt. They had done it; Viktor Skrypnyk’s side had dragged themselves out of the relegation abyss in the most dramatic of fashions. After the jubilance of survival in that manner passes, the realisation that changes need to be made normally follows: Werder were no exception.” Outside of the Boot

“As Stefan Reinartz’s career as a tidy holding midfielder in the Bundesliga began to stall due to various injuries, his curiosity about the machinations of the game only grew bigger. … Reinartz and Hegeler decided to look at passing; more specifically, they searched for a way to assign a numerical value to effective passing.” ESPN

“Berlin’s Olympiastadion played as the venue for what turned out to be an incredibly intense finale to the DFB-Pokal Cup and also Pep Guardiola’s reign as Bayern Munich manager. It was an evening of goodbyes as Mats Hummels also bid farewell to the club where he shot to stardom, playing 219 times before agreeing to return to Bavaria where the 27-year old began his career. However, it was the Catalan Coach that got the fairytale ending as 74,322 packed the capital’s stadium from west and south to see the Bundesliga champions complete the double in a captivating penalty shootout against old foes Borussia Dortmund, Brazilian Douglas Costa converting the winning kick.” Outside of the Boot

““Why do all good things come to an end?” That is the question, as noted contemporary thinker Nelly Furtado pondered but they do and we have arrived to the end of the 2015/16 season in which the final matchday of the Bundesliga brought us 29 goals and a lot of weird results. Bayern lifting the trophy http://imgur.com/gallery/juue6K7 and Robert Lewandowski breaking the 30 goal mark was almost a foregone conclusion , but ‘dogs were whistling a new tune, barking at the new moon’ as Hannover’s inexperienced defense made Mario Götze look like Neymar. A hearty congrats to Mario who scored 66% of his season total today! Let us hope that BVB will not be tricked into resigning him, after picking up Dembele and getting a 2-2 draw against Cologne, which picked up two goals on just six shots.” Bundesliga Fanatic

“When I last wrote about VFB Stuttgart for the Fanatic, they were in the thick of the relegation battle, and they had just recently hired Jurgen Kramny. Even though I thought that they had the ingredients to improve, even the most optimistic Stuttgart supporter couldn’t have predicted what would ensue for Kramny and Die Schwaben. Despite their most recent performance, a disappointing 2-0 home loss to a talent-rich but injury-riddled Leverkusen, the fact that Stuttgart are 11th in the league is remarkable when you realize where they were when Kramny took over.” Bundesliga Fanatic

“Eintracht Frankfurt have signed a new head coach to replace Armin Veh. From now on Niko Kovac, 44, will be the man at the side-line together with his brother, Robert Kovac, as assistant coach. The brothers were born in Berlin, and Niko played 241 matches for Hertha BSC Berlin, Hamburger SV, Bayer Leverkusen and FC Bayern München. Eintracht Frankfurt is in danger to be relegated after a disastrous sequence of losses, as Die Adler are 16th in the Bundesliga table, sliding downward as they haven’t won in their last seven matches.” Bundesliga Fanatic

Juventus’ static 4-4-2 shape vs. Bayern’s dynamic shape.
“Massimiliano Allegri played his 4-4-2 basic formation. As usual, when his side settled into low-block defense, the shape would be transpositioned into a 4-4-1-1 / 4-4-2-0. Early in the first-half, in their initial defensive shape, Juventus tended to let their forward-duo press without always establishing strong support-shape behind them. This pressing, in turn, allowed Bayern to bypass and progress forward. Juve’s zonal marking strongly focused on the central area, which provided space on the flank for Bayern, but Juventus was happy to push Bayern wide and trap them on the flanks.” Bundesliga Fanatic