Merlin to magic up a shock result in Leipzig ....
Oct 15, 2025
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I have just sent everyone on the mailing list the weekend Bundesliga notes, they ran to over 5,000 words and covered all nine games. You can read two below, they are the preview with the lowest stake suggestion and the other has "no bet", but both contain (IMO) content of interest.
Bundesliga:
I have reproduced my preseason notes for each team, along with a brief update on how their opening six games have played out.
Union Berlin- Borussia Mönchengladbach
Union Berlin
Union were promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time in 2019 and in their first four seasons not only survived but thrived, finishing 11-7-5-4 and played Champions League football in 2023/24, it is a true Cinderella story. That CL was always likely to make the domestic campaign tough and they finished 15th that season and 13th in 24/25. Across those two seasons they had a worrying -41 goal difference and did not score enough last season. They changed coach over the Winter Break, with Steffen Baumgart coming in and whilst goals did not pick up, results did and they played at 11th place level after his arrival. He knows the club and region well, having been born , raised and played in the East and he did play a couple of seasons with Union. The last two clubs he has coached were promoted Köln and Hamburger and recently, so that might serve him well this season as those games could well be crucial. XGF gave them an additional 7 goals and they were joint 7th with 24 points in the second half of the season. Union have sold striker Benedict Hollerbach ( 9 goals and 3 assists, which is a lot in a team that scored so few) but have spent that money on three offensive players, so will be looking to at least balance that out.
Borussia Mönchengladbach
BMG have finished top 10 in 9 of 10 seasons, with three top 5's. they were only a goal shy of Wolfsburg ( see above) and they have scored 52-66 goals for 7 straight seasons and it is clear where they need to upgrade and that is on the other side of the ball, as through that period their goal difference had dropped from +26 to -11 but -2 last season shows that maybe they are improving . Although, XGA saw them giving up 10 more, so maybe not! They sold 11 goal striker Alassane Plea but he is now 32yo and they have replaced well, added some other options too, including Shuto Machino, who also scored 11 and with a relegated side in Kiel, but no real defensive upgrades yet.
Union are inconsistent and their two wins have come against top teams in Frankfurt and Stuttgart, but they lost both on xG, the latter heavily, scoring six goals from a shade under 2.0 xG in those wins. Only two goals in the other four games and I think it is fair to say that those scoring issues remain and might have been compounded.
BMG are winless and all five goals scored came in two games. However, they have already parted ways with their head coach and have an interim appointment in charge for the time being. Apparently they are set to announce a new head of sport this week, he might already be in place by the time this game starts and he will be involved in the process to find a new head coach whom they want before the next (November) international break. Their underlying stats are not terrible, they have had the 5th most attempts on goal in the Bundesliga and expected numbers see them as 4 points and 5 goals better off. They have scored in each of the last five visits to Union, won here 2-1 last season and a goal might take them far in this game.
No "official" bet.
RB Leipzig- Hamburger SV
RB Leipzig
RBL were 7th, which was their lowest finish since coming into the league in 2016/17 (posting five top 3's) and they missed out on European football for the first time since then, but is that a blessing in disguise? As bad as they were last season (it is all relative), they should have conceded 16 more goals ( 15th !) according to xGA and xP puts them on 9 fewer points (10th). Maybe Jurgen Klopp should spend less time advertising Trivago and more on his job as Global Head of Soccer for Red Bull!
RBL sold Benjamin Sesko for a very big fee along with a couple of other low level outgoings and signed seven players for circa 110-120m, for a net spend of 25m. Sesko contributed 13 goals and 5 assists last season, but they were "poor" anyway so I think that overall this is probably good off season business.
Hamburger SV
It has been a long time coming and a lot of near misses, but Hamburg are back in the top flight after seven seasons in the second tier, finishing top 4 in each! They have not spent as big as I felt they might, but they have added experience which they were short of. Yussuf Poulsen has played 230+ Bundesliga games for Leipzig and he and Nicolas Capaldo have some 60-70 Champions League games between them. Nicolai Remberg played 32 games for Kiel last season. The signing of CF/RW Rayan Philippe looks interesting, he has had two good seasons with Eintracht Braunschweig in the second tier with 13 goals and 6 assists from in 24/25 a 19 goal contribution in a bottom three team who only scored 38 (50%).
XGD also suggested that Hamburg were some 20 goals worse than their flattering +34 goal difference.
RBL had a poor 24/25 by normal standards and were actually worse than that ( see above)! They opened with a frightful 6-0 loss to Bayren, but are 4-1-0 subsequently, conceding just twice and only dropping a point away to Dortmund and xGF suggest they should have scored five more goals, all of which makes good reading. However, I cannot buy into it just yet and my jury is still out on head coach Ole Werner, who left Bremen by opting to depart, but the rumours suggested he was going to be sacked anyway for a refusal to play young players, which is odd given he is only 37yo and an odd appointment at RBL. But we shall see.
Hamburg have taken 7 points from their last three games, with back to back clean sheets to take into the international break and 5 of 8 goals conceded this season all game in Munich against Bayern and many (most) teams will lose heavily there. They might not have beaten too much in Mainz going into the break, but they destroyed them 4-0 , it could have been six and Mainz are a well established top flight side. Rayan Phillipe ( see above) scored twice and now that he is up to full fitness ( he had limited game time in the first three games of the season) he has three goals in three actual starts and looks the real deal to me. Also, only finally ready to start those last three starts was LW Jean-Luc Dompe who scored 9 goals and provided 14 assists last season and maybe we are really only just seeing the real Hamburg. I should also give a mention to LWB Miro Muheim (they are very strong on that flank) he has great set piece delivery and provided 13 assists last season. Head coach Merlin Polzin is only 34yo, tactically fluid, likes to get the ball wide and into dangerous areas as quickly as possible and is a magician (see what I did there!) with set pieces which Hamburg spend a lot of time on. Possible upset!
1.25 units Hamburger SV level ball @ 5.37 asian line.
Good luck!
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