3 — Likely number of German top goalscorers over the past 10 years by season’s end. With Ibisevic’s injury cementing his tally at 18, it seems likely that Patrick Helmes (17), Mario Gomez or Grafite (14 each) will end up with title of Torschützenkönig. BUT if Grafite were to win, it’d increase the number of Brazilians at the top over that same time to 4.
3 (Bonus) — Goals Schalke need until they break even on goal differential on the all-time Bundesliga table. At 9th place they’re currently the highest ranked team with a negative differential, 4 spots ahead of Hertha Berlin.
5 — Andriy Voronin’s hat-trick was only the fifth of the season. The others were Claudio Pizarro’s against Frankfurt, Grafite’s against Cottbus, Patrick Helmes’ against Hannover 96, and Demba Ba’s against Stuttgart. (Szabolcs Huszti gets an honorable mention for missing a penalty but scoring a brace later in the game versus Gladbach.)
5 — Games Hoffenheim have now gone winless. Furthermore, over this stretch they’ve conceded 8 goals. That’s as many as in November, December and January combined (although the latter two were shortened by the winter break).
8 — Seasons since the 1991/1992 (the first year of a unified Bundesliga) that featured a champion that did not also lead the league in goal differential. More on the correlation between goal differential and table position in a future post.
10 — Games Wolfsburg have won at home after their 1–0 victory against Karlsruhe. Across all competitions this season that number increases to 13. In fact, their only defeat was a 2–5 setback to Bremen during a mid-week DFB Pokal match earlier this month.
12 — Games (only one of which ended nil-nil) that Karlsruhe have failed to score in which, unsurprisingly, tops all teams. You might not be surprised to learn that they are also the only club not to have won a game by 2 or more goals.
14 — Goals scored (out of 22) by ‘foreigners’ (including German-born players who represent other countries, e.g. Hamit Altintop). This isn’t something I pay particular attention to, considering the Bundesliga is an international league. Neverthless, 64%? Is that the norm?
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I counted 8 goals out of 22 scored by germans. Dabrowski, Helmes, Levels, Marin, Klose, Podolski, Jones and Gomez each scored one goal. These 36% seem to be the norm. Since the winter break the german players never scored more than 10 times on a single match day.
You are definitely right. In the early morning haze I conflated 14 and 8 to make 18, which in turn makes no sense. I’ve corrected the post. I also looked into the claim about German players not scoring more than 10 on a matchday since the Winter Break. Assuming you’re not being strictly literal (i.e., only on Saturdays and not the entire weekend) I came up with these numbers:
18th Matchday/1st After Winter Break – 5/20 (25%) scored by ‘Germans’
19th/2nd – 13/30 (43%)
20th/3rd – 10/25 (40%)
21st/4th – 11/28 (39%)
22nd/5th – 4/20 (20%)
23rd/6th – 8/22 (36%)
That involved quite a bit of counting and I may have missed something (or mistyped) so feel free to add a correction. It seems, however, that there is a fairly narrow band. So, I agree with you, 36% does seem to be the norm.
Okay, that claim with 10 goals isn’t correct. I overlooked Freis at the 19th matchday who scored two times. I count 12/30 for the 19th matchday now.
The 21st matchday was even worse. Jansen (2), Gomez (2), Pinto (I didn’t know he has a german passport), Schulz, Brosinski (I overlooked him too), Helmes, Baumjohann, Marin, Neuville, Kuranyi and Cacau (got his german passport just recently). That’s 13 german goals and with 46% the highest fraction after the winter brake.