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The winter break is over and football has returned to German stadiums. The Bundesliga championship continues - the second round of the national championship started on Fridays and weekends, with a few surprises in the first round. The second part of the season started on Friday with a match between the local team "Gladbach" and the league leaders "Bayern". The defending champions from Munich secured a solid 3-1 victory against the hosts, proving that the team maintained excellent form after the winter break. Dutchman Roy Makaay scored two goals for the winners, while "Bayern" leader M. Ballack added one. In fact, in this match, the "Bayern" players ended an unpleasant tradition - before this match, the Munich team had not scored a goal at "Gladbach" stadium for seven years in a row. This victory was the fifteenth for the "Bavarians" out of eighteen league matches, putting them eight points ahead of their closest rivals. The ambitious "Hamburg" team started the second round of the season unsuccessfully - the city's football players surprisingly had to acknowledge the superiority of the league's underdogs, "Nurnberg". Playing without four key players, the "Hamburg" team took the lead in the 65th minute when "Nurnberg" defender A.Wolf accidentally redirected the ball into his own goal. However, the guests did not enjoy the lead for long, as "Nurnberg" equalized just two minutes later. This time, defenders were also unlucky - after I. Saenko's shot, the "Hamburg" defender K. Bouhlarouz redirected the ball into their own net. The problems did not end for the guests, as shortly after, young German talent S. Kiessling appeared on the field and led "Nurnberg" to victory, ruining the Bundesliga debut for two "Hamburg" newcomers - Ailton and N. de Jong. After the match, guests' coach T. Dollas admitted that after their lead, his players stopped playing football, making "Nurnberg" a deserved winner. Achieving an unexpected victory, "Nurnberg" slightly improved their position in the standings and currently occupy fifteenth place. Another surprise was presented by the "Duisburg" team, who managed to defeat "Stuttgart" by a narrow margin as visitors. In a tense match, which saw seven yellow cards shown, the only goal was scored by M. Caligiuri. The victory helped the league newcomers to slightly improve their position, although relegation to a lower league is still a threat. It was also a successful round for the "Bayer" players, who defeated the "Eintracht" team at home 2-1. With just over twenty minutes left until the end of the match, "Eintracht" was leading, but "Bayer" fought to the end, managed to score two goals, and gave their fans a victory. Meanwhile, the winter break did not seem to provide much benefit for the "Koln" team - the club that returned to the Bundesliga this season continued their terrible performance and this time, they fell to "Mainz" 2-4. The Cologne players have failed to secure a victory in thirteen consecutive matches, and with twelve points, they are currently in second-to-last place in the tournament table. In Sunday's matches, both favorites playing away secured victories - "Schalke" defeated "Kaiserslautern" 2-0, and "Werder" won 1-0 against "Arminia". This victory allowed the Bremen team to take advantage of "Hamburg" defeat and rise to second place in the league. All 18 round results: 1 – 3 13` [0 – 1] Roy Makaay 55` [0 – 2] Michael Ballack 56` [1 – 2] Wesley Sonck 69` [1 – 3] Roy Makaay 0 – 1 43` [0 – 1] Marco Caligiuri 2 – 1 41` [0 – 1] Ioannis Amanatidis 67` [1 – 1] Paul Freier 74` [2 – 1] Jörg Butt 4 – 2 5` [1 – 0] Michael Thurk 32` [1 – 1] Lukas Podolski 49` [1 – 2] Matthias Scherz 55` [2 – 2] Michael Thurk 61` [3 – 2] Mohamed Zidan 87` [4 – 2] Benjamin Auer 1 – 1 13` [0 – 1] Christoph Dabrowski 90` [1 – 1] Dick van Burik 45` Altin Lala (Hannover) removed from the field 2 – 1 65` [0 – 1] Andreas Wolf (own goal) 67` [1 – 1] Ivan Saenko 73` [2 – 1] Stefan Kiessling 3 – 2 13` [0 – 1] Mike Hanke 25` [1 – 1] Stefan Schnoor (own goal) 31` [2 – 1] Ebi Smolarek 67` [3 – 1] Salvatore Gambino 71` [3 – 2] Diego Klimowicz 0 - 2 13` [0 - 1] Lincoln 78` [0 - 2] Levan Kobiashvili (penalty) 0 - 1 72` [0 - 1] Frank Fahrenhorst
