German teams strong in CL, weak in EL

The German teams in international competitions had quite different weeks. While Bayern and Schalke in Champions League put themselves in brilliant and good positions respectively their fellow Bundesliga teams in Europa League failed to catch up. Only VFB Stuttgart managed to get to next round, for Gladbach, Leverkusen and Hanover it was the end of the road for this season.

Only VFB Stuttgart managed to enter next round in Europa League.

The neutral German football fan had a very diversified three days under the week. FC Bayern Munich kicked off the international matches on Tuesday by defeating FC Arsenal in London with 3-1 putting themselves in a really brilliant position heading into second leg in Munich. FCB showed a superior performance as they do in Bundesliga almost every week and earned the victory by any means.

FC Schalke 04 on Wednesday put a lot of effort into the game in Istanbul against Galatasaray. It was quite the exchange of blows over 90 minutes with a 1-1-draw in the end that was well earned by both teams. Istanbul now definitely have to score in Gelsenkirchen in two and a half weeks while Schalke are in a way better position.

Europa League very disappointing

As good as the week started on Thursday a lot went wrong from a German perspective. Four teams had the chance to enter the round of the last 16 but only one of them managed to do so. None of them had a really good position heading into the second leg on Thursday as they only drew or lost. VFB Stuttgart were the only ones to fulfill their task by defeating KRC Genk with 2-0 after drawing the first leg in Stuttgart.

Borussia Moenchengladbach drew 3-3 against Lazio Rome in first leg and lost the second with 0-2. Bayer 04 Leverkusen lost the first leg with 0-1 against Benfica on home territory and lost the second leg too, this time 1-2. Hanover 06 showed the most effort of the three losing teams as they were pretty close. After losing first match 1-3 in Makhachkala Hanover managed to score the lead about 20 minutes before the end giving them the opportunity to enter next round by scoring one more goal. However Traore scored the final knockout blow just second before the end of the eight minute long over time after a counter attack. The 1-1 end result kicked Hanover out of the competition.