After an absence of more than three months, the Bundesliga is well and truly back. Three teams from last season have departed the top flight, with three others taking their places. While Eintracht Frankfurt and Fortuna Dusseldorf started life among the country’s biggest clubs with victories, things went less well for Greuther Furth, who slipped to a 3-0 loss at home to Bayern Munich. A total of 22 goals were scored across the weekend’s nine matches, and as ever, Goal.com are on hand to assess the best individual performances.
After an injury-ravaged couple of seasons, it looked as though Rene Adler‘s career was unavelling when he was looking most promising. However, he has since left Bayer Leverkusen, and on his first Bundesliga appearance with new club Hamburg, put in an excellent performance, despite Thorsten Fink’s men opening their league campaign with a 1-0 loss to Nurnberg.
In defence, the reinging champions got their title defence under way with a fine performance against Werder Bremen, with Mats Hummels proving to be as solid as ever at the back and equally useful as a spare man going forward. Philipp Lahm put in a fine showing as Bayern Munich beat Greuther 3-0, while Joel Matip was the brightest spark in the back line of the Schalke side that drew 2-2 with Hannover.
In midfield, Marko Arnautovic was a constant threat down the right for Werder Bremen, putting in a number of fine crosses, including the one to set up Theodor Gebre Selassie’s equaliser. Hiroshi Kiyotake was involved throughout as Nurnberg edged past Hamburg, while Lewis Holtby and Juan Arango both grabbed a goal and an assist each for Schalke and Borussia Monchengladbach respectively.
Up front, Marco Reus was a constant threat to the Bremen defence and capped his first appearance at Signal Iduna Park as a Dortmund player with an 11th minute opener, while Bas Dost helped Wolfsburg to a 1-0 win with a last-gasp winner against Stuttgart on his Bundesliga debut. Dani Schahin stole the headlines for Fortuna Dusseldorf with two second-half goals, one of which was a 20-yard lob, against Augsburg.