The Bundesliga returned following the winter break with Borussia Dortmund drawing 3-3 with Eintracht Frankfurt on Friday night.
The return of the Bundesliga following the winter break has been blighted by two games being postponed due to the snowstorm that is engulfing the north of Germany this weekend. St.Pauli vs RB Leipzig, as well as Werder Bremen vs Hoffenheim, will have to be played at a later date.
So, due to the postponements, there are only three games in the Bundesliga this afternoon: Freiburg vs Hamburg, Heidenheim vs 1.FC Köln and Union Berlin vs Mainz.
Here are the three things we learnt:
A big day at the bottom:
With St.Pauli no longer playing and Augsburg playing tomorrow, today was a good chance for both Heidenheim and Mainz to make up some ground on their relegation rivals.
Both came close to, but both would end up drawing their games 2-2 against Köln, and Union Berlin after each threw away their leads.
Heidenheim led twice against Köln, with Marvin Pieringer opening the scoring with a goal of the season contender, before Eric Martel made it 1-1 for Effzeh. Julian Niehues would make it 2-1 thanks to a fortunate deflection of Köln loan signing Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, before Saïd El Mala made it 2-2. 2026 is likely to be a very big year for the winger.
While Mainz threw away a 2-0 lead away at Urs Fischer’s former side, conceding twice in the final 13 minutes, which would have been a big three points. Since the Swiss took over, they have now drawn three games in a row.
How good is Luka Vuskovic?
The defender, who is on loan from Tottenham, was voted the best player of the season so far by the Bundesliga website, a surprising result considering Harry Kane is having the best season of his career, but it is also a testament to Vuskovic’s performances for newly promoted Hamburg.
Despite their 2-1 loss to Freiburg this afternoon, Vuskovic put in another strong defensive performance, providing 13 defensive contributions and winning 71% of his aerial duels (via FotMob), and his immense aerial ability was on show again as he scored the opener in the game too.
With the trajectory that Vuskovic has been on in his first six months in the Bundesliga, it is safe to say that this may be the only time we see him in Germany, unless he spends another season on loan at a club higher up the table.
However, considering this is Tottenham we are talking about.
Snow wreaks havoc:
In the year of 2026, it is surprising that two games in the Bundesliga were called off due to the amount of snow. Both the Millerntor Stadion (St.Pauli) and the Weserstadion (Werder Bremen) were renovated in the last 15 years, and despite having undersoil heating (according to transfermarkt), they were unable to stop the games being called off.
Elsewhere around the Bundesliga:
As there were only three games this afternoon, it is right to look back at yesterday’s 3-3 draw between Dortmund and Frankfurt and the striker who garnered all the attention pre-match – Younes Ebnoutalib.
As pointed out yesterday, the 22-year-old won the Man of the Match award. Physically, he was a problem for die Schwarzgelben’s defence for most of the evening, then he made it 2-2 with a great strike of the ball, while he was also able to throw in a ball role before shooting.
Considering this was Ebnoutalib’s 26th game as a professional footballer, it may be safe to say that Frankfurt have done it again.
A fun fact too, as pointed out yesterday, Ebnoutalib’s father is an Olympic medalist, having won silver in Taekwondo at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 (before Younes and myself were born).
GGFN | Jack Meenan
