After almost a month of stoppage the German Championship 2017/2018 edition will be resumed this Friday, January 12. The eighteenth round, the first of the second round, will open with the clash Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich. Scheduled to start at 17:30 CET, the duel will be held at the Bay Arena in Leverkusen.
The recent performance of Bayer Leverkusen
Bayer Leverkusen completed the first half in a better position than expected after a significant reshuffle in the cast before the start of the season. With 28 points (seven wins, seven draws and three defeats), he occupies the fourth place, closing the classification zone for the 2018/2019 European Champions League.
The score is the same as Borussia Dortmund, who is in third position, Leipzig, fifth, and Borussia Monchengladbach, sixth. The classification of this fierce fight was defined by the tiebreaker criteria.
Leverkusen have not lost at BayArena yet. He played eight Bundesliga games in the Bundesliga, winning four of them and tying the other four. In this way it presents the sixth best performance of the table of classification that takes into account only the results conquered by the teams in the house.
Leverkusen’s most recent defeat came on Sept. 20. In Berlin, it took 2 to 1 of the Hertha. Since then, he has made 14 official matches. He won eight of them and drew six. In the traditional tournament interval that is triggered by the strong winter in the country made two friendly matches. He defeated Furth by 2 to 1 and drew with Munster 2-2. The games were held on January 5 and 6, respectively, and served as coach Heiko Herrlich could give the opportunity to play for almost everything his cast.
The current form of Bayern Munich
After a difficult start to the season, Bayern finished the first half of the game schedule exactly where it was expected: in first place. With 41 points accumulated (13 wins, two draws and two losses) he walks to put another Bundesliga trophy in his huge gallery of cups. It has 11 points of front in the comparison with the Schalke, placed second.
He is still in contention for the European Champions League title, where he will face Turkey’s Besiktas in the last 16 and the German Cup in which he will play small Padeborn in the quarterfinals.
After closing 2017 with a string of six wins, Bayern opened 2018 with two more successes in friendlies. He beat Al Ahli Doha of Qatar 6-0 and scored 5 to 3 at Sonnehof Grossaspach.
The breakout period also allowed the medical department to release some players who were injured. Now, only three main-team athletes are still on injury treatment. Manuel Neur (three matches in the 2017/2018 German Championship), defender Mats Hummels (15 games, one goal) and midfielder Thiago Alcântara (nine games, one goal) are still in the recovery phase.
History of the bouts between Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich
Bayern have not lost to Leverkusen for five games. They were three wins and two draws in the period.
It is quite common for the second half of the German season to show significant changes over the performance of the first round. During this period, the clubs took advantage of the stoppage to make hiring and determine the physical and technical conditioning of the players.
In the case of Bayern, those training days were certainly welcome as the club had a coaching change early in the season and it was the first time that Jupp Heinckes, who took over, had so much time to implement his ideas. This makes the club the best choice for Friday’s clash. The Bavarians appear with a price of 1.80 in Rivalo. Draw promotes return of 3.90 and success of home owners multiplies the investment by 4.00.