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Having looked in Part 1 at the Bundesliga season’s stand-out moments from individual players, we’ll now move on to the most extraordinary and unlikely performances by individual German teams.
1. The worst attacking performances
As might be expected, the worst attacking display of the season came from Hamburg during their annual thrashing in Munich, when they produced a pitiful 0.01xG over the course of 90 minutes.
That game also saw Hamburg become the only team this season to manage just one shot over the course of a whole game. And here it is in all its glory:
HSV were also one of nine teams to go an entire match without registering a single shot on target, along with Hertha, Bremen, Wolfsburg, Freiburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Cologne and Mainz. Freiburg managed that unenviable feat on four different occasions, continuing the ‘when they’re bad, they’re absolutely awful’ theme of their current stint in the Bundesliga.
Wolfsburg were the only side to go a whole match without having a shot on target both home and away, against Dortmund and Hamburg respectively.
The season’s worst home attacking performance by far was Hertha’s horror-show against Schalke, when they managed a lamentable 0.03xG over the 90 minutes. You can savour those efforts here:
Not quite as appalling – but still very bad indeed – were the home displays of Hamburg against Bayern (0.16xG) and Dortmund (0.19xG).
2. The best attacking displays
The season’s five most impressive attacking performances all came from home sides. Bayern were responsible for three of them, against Hamburg (4.92xG – seen below), Dortmund (4.6xG) and Mainz (4.42xG). Dortmund produced the second-best showing with 4.84xG versus Gladbach.
The campaign’s finest attacking performance by an away side was Hoffenheim’s 3.44xG during their 2-5 win in Leipzig, which can be seen below. Freiburg weren’t far behind with 3.41xG when beating Cologne 3-4 just before the winter break.
Leipzig and Bayern shared the honour of having the most shots in a game. The former managed 29 in their early-season 4-1 mauling of Freiburg, while Bayern subsequently matched that in December against Hannover. You can see almost all of the latter here:
Bayern also had the most shots on target in one match, with 14 during their 4-0 home win over Mainz. Rudy’s volley onto the post was technically off-target, but it was such an exquisite strike that it’s been included anyway:
Hertha, who have been so careful and efficient with their efforts on goal under Pal Dardai – as evidenced again this season by a league-low 3.5 shots from outside the penalty area per 90 minutes – put in the most clinical performance in front of goal. Their conversion rate in the 0-3 away win over Eintracht Frankfurt was an extraordinary 75%, although one goal did come from a penalty.
3. The Bundesliga season’s most uneventful match
During the goalless draw when Leverkusen visited Bremen at the start of May, the two teams managed just one shot on target between them. Much as I’m a big fan of Julian Brandt and overhead kicks, you still expect a little more goalmouth action than this over the course of an entire 90 minutes:
4. The most wasteful performances
Dortmund’s trip to Mainz shortly before the winter break was considerably more eventful, but that was mainly due to it featuring a season-high 20 off-target shots, which can be marvelled at here:
Measured in terms of xG, Dortmund again featured in the season’s most wasteful performance in front of goal, during Wolfsburg’s visit to the Westfalenstadion in January. The two teams failed to convert a combined xG of 3.26 into any goals.
Without wishing to pick on Dortmund, it should be noted that in xG terms they put in both the season’s most wasteful performance by a home side – in the Wolfsburg game seen above – and by an away team, during their September visit to Freiburg.
5. The closest games
The most evenly contested game of the season was Mainz v Schalke in March, which had a 54% chance of ending in a draw. Schalke inevitably won 0-1, one of many against-the-odds victories for them throughout the campaign. Only three other games had a 50-50 chance or better of finishing all square.
6. The most unlikely results
In very broad terms, “unlikely” outcomes fall into two categories – the ones in which the margin of victory/loss differs markedly from what would be expected from the performances, and those when the result itself is highly improbable.
The most unlikely results of the season were all settled by a solitary goal:
It comes as little surprise that the most improbable draw was the 1-1 between Wolfsburg and Leipzig in December, which had only a 10% likelihood of finishing even – one of many instances in which Wolfsburg snatched a point from the jaws of victory under Martin Schmidt.
7. The most bizarre scorelines
Finally, the most unlikely scorelines were Leipzig’s 2-6 win in Berlin, and Leverkusen’s 1-5 away hammering of Gladbach, both of which occurred despite their opponents creating the better chances.
