Nusa fires Leipzig past Elversberg as Bremen thrill and El Mala escapes red
Bundesliga Matchday 7 delivers goals, controversy and a star turn
Borussia Mönchengladbach opened Bundesliga Matchday 7 with a 3-2 win against Stuttgart to avoid setting an all-time Bundesliga record for the worst start ever. Saturday's bill was dominated by the mid-table sides, with Augsburg facing Union Berlin, Köln hosting Schalke, Mainz taking on Werder Bremen, Paderborn meeting Hamburg and RB Leipzig welcoming Elversberg.
Antonio Nusa is RB Leipzig's most important player
Nusa was a key figure in Norway's run to the quarter-finals of the World Cup in the summer, and he has carried that form into the new campaign. In seven Bundesliga games, the winger has three goals and five assists — making him the RB Leipzig player with the most goal involvements in the league, ahead of Christopher Nkunku.
With Nkunku absent against Elversberg, Nusa stepped up once more, providing two assists as Martin Demichelis' side beat newly promoted Elversberg 4-0 at the Red Bull Arena. The hosts, sluggish before the interval, exploded after the break: Rômulo scored twice and Christoph Baumgartner marked his return from injury with a late header in a four-goal second-half salvo.
Should Nusa maintain this level, he will likely become Leipzig's next big summer sale. Yet across his two full seasons at the Red Bull Arena, the 21-year-old's recurring issue has been fitness — he has repeatedly hit similar purple patches only for injury to derail him, and he has struggled to recapture the same form upon returning.
Werder Bremen are a fun team
After a difficult Bundesliga campaign last season, Werder Bremen have reinvented themselves as must-watch television, largely because of the goals. Across their past five matches they have staged three comebacks and scored five, four, four and — today — five goals in a 3-2 victory at Mainz.
Niclas Füllkrug, who had gone top of the Bundesliga scoring charts with a brace against SC Paderborn on 17 October, again pitched in with a double from the penalty spot before Anthony Caci pulled one back to make it 2-1 just before the break. Ludovic Reis extended the lead to 3-1 after the restart, but two minutes later Jae-Sung Lee reduced the deficit to 3-2 — and, unlike in recent weeks, Bremen held on to claim all three points and climb into sixth.
Such entertainment is plainly unsustainable, and if Bremen are to emerge as outsiders for a European place this term, they must tighten a defence that keeps yielding goals.
Said El Mala should have been sent off
Following a drawn-out transfer saga in the summer and what looked like a bright start, Said El Mala's Bundesliga season has stalled of late. The 20-year-old has been largely ineffectual for Köln, as illustrated in their 0-0 draw with Schalke.
Yet there is a case that El Mala should not have been on the pitch for the 80 minutes he did feature. Just before half-time, El Mala shoved Schalke's Soufian El-Faouzi into Robin Gosens as the pair contested an aerial ball. The collision was head-on and both players were eventually substituted off — but El Mala escaped any sanction at all, not even a yellow card.
GGFN | Jack Meenan