Champagne Bundesliga (Feat. DEREK RAE)
Champagne Bundesliga (Feat. DEREK RAE)
BAYERN MUNICH vs BAYER LEVERKUSEN is elite continental fare. Plus: the Madrid derby, the Petroderby, and Man United host Tottenham.
Back in May, Derek Rae came by the show ahead of Bayer Leverkusen’s trip to Eintracht Frankfurt, the match he was set to call that weekend for ESPN. In a vacuum, it wasn’t exactly a marquee match, but this was the anti-vacuum: Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen side were putting together an invincible season. They were undefeated across the Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal, and the Europa League, a run full of stoppage-time winners and last-gasp equalizers that gave them an air of inevitability. In the end, they lost just once: in the Europa League final, one game short of a perfect treble.
It was a genuine phenomenon, a force of footballing supernature that steamrolled the steamrollers. Bayern Munich have been the bully boys of the Bundesliga since its founding in 1963, winning the Meisterschale on 32 of 61 possible occasions, and they’d won 11 in a row before Leverkusen entered the plot. Now the Bavarians are looking for a return to the normal order of things, and they can begin by beating back Die Werkself—The Factory XI—to take more than the one point they managed in head-to-heads with Leverkusen last season.
To get us ready for this one, Mr. Derek Rae returns to offer a bit of his deep insight into German football. He’ll once again be calling the match for ESPN at 12:30pm Eastern this Saturday. Plus, with the release of EA Sports FC 25 this week, we took a moment to chat about his role as a commentator for the legendary video game formerly known as FIFA.
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SATURDAY
NEWCASTLE vs MAN CITY
7:30am ET, 12:30pm UK
It’s the Petroderby, where City will face their first test since losing Rodri to long-term injury against title rivals Arsenal last weekend. The Ballon d’Or candidate is the lynchpin of Pep Guardiola’s system, and the Catalunyan mastermind will be in the lab trying to fill the void against a Newcastle outfit who’ve started brightly enough. 10 points from five games is Top Six form from Eddie Howe’s side, and they’ll hope to land a sucker punch on some woozy visitors to St. James’ Park.
UDINESE vs INTER
9am ET, 2pm UK
The Friulani of Italy’s upper northeast region were top of the league until they were drilled 3-0 by Roma last weekend. They’re still just a point behind new temporary leaders Torino, however, and they’re two clear of Internazionale, last year’s dominant force in this division. The blue-and-blacks fell to Christian Pulisic and local enemies Milan on Sunday, and they’ll want to reassert their title credentials here against the early-season upstarts.
ARSENAL vs LEICESTER CITY
10am ET, 3pm UK
The Gunners are riding high on a combination of decent play and bitter resentment towards the referees, the media, and maybe even the Football Gods. After a trying week, the North Londoners will try to click into Points Accumulation Mode here, but what if Jamie Vardy comes to town to ruin the parade? Stranger things have happened, as they’re likely to at CHELSEA vs BRIGHTON in the same match window.
BAYERN MUNICH vs BAYER LEVERKUSEN
12:30pm ET, 5:30pm UK
A heavyweight bout in the Bundesliga. Get the full preview with Derek Rae above!
SUNDAY
IPSWICH TOWN vs ASTON VILLA
9am ET, 2pm UK
The plucky newcomers in dire need of a point or three welcome a high-flying Midlands outfit to East Anglia. The Tractor Boys are in for a scrap to stay out of the drop zone this season, while the Villans are a bona fide Champions League club at the minute: they took their first win in that competition this week and they’re third in the Premier League.
MAN UNITED vs TOTTENHAM
11:30am ET, 4:30pm UK
Erik ten Hag is consistently defiant, but it’s a been poor start to 2024/25 for Manchester United: 11th in the league, plus a home draw to open their Europa League campaign this week when they allowed FC Twente to snatch an equalizer. In the lead-up to that one, the manager said it’s "not nice to have to hurt something you love” about the club he captained as a player, but it was the side from the Netherlands who were celebrating at Old Trafford on Wednesday.
Ange Postecoglou is in similar need of a result in the Hotspur hotseat. The Lilywhites have been wobbling hard in recent weeks, but a win over Brentford last weekend stemmed the tide of rancor just a bit. The Australian has lost some of the equity he built up with the Spurs faithful last season, no doubt about it, but his team play with an identity that United often lack. They’re even on points with the Red Devils, however, and both these sides are desperate to dig themselves out of mid-table.
ATLÉTICO MADRID vs REAL MADRID
3pm ET, 8pm UK
10 years ago this month, Spanish football writer Sid Lowe declared that Diego Simeone’s muscular, savvy, ruthless, and skilled Atlético side of the 2010s had “revitalized El Derbi.” Before that, this match was a bit of a walkover for a Real Madrid team who’d made themselves comfortable at the top of the world: they’d rattled off nine consecutive victories in the Madrileño, and they hadn’t lost in 23 league meetings coming into the 2013-14 season.
But that year, Atléti took four points off them on their way to taking La Liga, one of two occasions they’ve broken the Spanish duopoly over the last decade. The red-and-whites also blasted their way into the Champions League final, defeating Milan, Barcelona, and Chelsea along the way. That’s when they ran into the neighbors, Real Madrid—the first time two teams from the same city have contested the showpiece—and Simeone’s streetfighters were seconds from victory when Sergio Ramos smashed in a dramatic equalizing header before Madrid romped to victory in extra time. It was heartbreak in Lisbon for Los Colchoneros, but they’d returned to a status they last enjoyed decades prior: as a name to be feared, year after year, on the continent.
That status is never lacking for their old crosstown enemies, the singularly dominant force in world football. Los Blancos have won La Liga four times in the last decade, the Champions League six times out of 10, and they took both last season when Barcelona faltered and Atléti failed to take up their usual position as the third horse in the race. They finished 19 points back, and they’re already five points behind the all-whites in 2024/25, albeit with a game in hand. Madrid have powered up again with the additions of Kylian Mbappé and Endrick, though the former is out for multiple weeks with a thigh problem. The injury list is lengthy for the European champions, which might just give Simeone and his squad that extra bit of belief that they can take something off their mighty neighbors, particularly at home in the Metropolitano.⚽︎