Bundesliga Briefing: Tolcay Cigerci's nine-minute hat-trick and a new look for champions Bayern

Bayer LeverkusenBayern MunichBorussia DortmundEintracht FrankfurtRB LeipzigWolfsburgScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsAnalysisBundesliga Briefing: Tolcay Cigerci’s nine-minute hat-trick and a new look for champions BayernVincent Kompany led Bayern to back-to-back titles Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP via Getty Images Share articleBayern Munich are German champions again. After Borussia Dortmund lost at Hoffenheim on Saturday, Bayern needed a point from their game against Stuttgart. They got three, winning 4-2, and secured their 13th Bundesliga title in 14 years. This has been inevitable for some time, so instead of an analysis of the Championship, a few notes on Bayern and what happens next. Jamal Musiala played well again on Sunday; how timely. Serge Gnabry is likely lost for the season —and possibly the World Cup, too — with an adductor tear, so Vincent Kompany will need to reconfigure his attack. They are contrasting players, of course, but there is some overlap. As he did last season, Musiala was seen dropping very deep to collect the ball on Sunday, almost between his centre-halves. That was also a Gnabry function before his injury, so that element will be maintained. But whereas Gnabry’s tendency was to be more direct and dynamic, Musiala has more traditional playmaking tendencies. He’s more likely to attack a defence than to drive beyond it, so that will be a point of difference and something Kompany has to resolve ahead of the DFB-Pokal semi-final against Bayer Leverkusen this week and, of course, the two-legged Champions League semi-final with Paris Saint-Germain, which begins next Tuesday in France. Another question, but more long-term: what happens with Nicolas Jackson and the role he occupies? It was known a long time ago that he would not be fulfilling the obligations to make his loan from Chelsea permanent. Good news for Bayern, because the fees involved were outrageous. But while never a rival for Harry Kane, he has proven a useful squad player. Across the Bundesliga and Champions League, he has provided a goal involvement every 88 minutes, which, while not spectacular, is still valuable. Jackson — a goalscorer against Stuttgart — has been frustrated with his role. Clearly, he would like more minutes and more responsibility, suggesting that even a renegotiated deal is unlikely. But he will need to be replaced and, looking ahead to next season, that’s a tricky bit of recruitment. Max Eberl and Christoph Freund, the board member for sport and sporting director, will need to find someone capable of performing at Bayern’s level, who is also willing to be Kane’s permanent deputy, but whose signing does not involve the prohibitive financials of the Jackson loan. It’s quite the needle to thread. Up to the north west. Werder Bremen won the second Nordderby of the season, beating Hamburg 3-1. It was a game full of brilliant goals. Two from Jens Stage, one from Robert Glatzel. Have a look at the pre-match choreography at the Weserstadion, too: 🇩🇪 Tifo et ambiance exceptionnelle pour le derby Brême – Hambourg 🔥#SVW #SVWHSV #Werder #Bremen pic.twitter.com/lISkWk3KhE — Stadium Traveller (@Stadium_Tr) April 18, 2026 By the way, a local tip. Should you ever get the chance to watch a Bremen game, make sure you walk to the stadium. The area around the main station is quite bland, but head for the Altstadt and then follow the river all the way to the ground. That’s German football’s version of the walk to Fulham’s Craven Cottage. Most likely, that will still be a top-flight matchday experience next season: Bremen’s win takes them five points clear of the relegation play-off. St. Pauli, who currently occupy it, could only draw with Koln on Friday night. That might have been a semi-decent result, had Wolfsburg not produced thexf shock of the round in Kopenick, where they upended Union Berlin. This was Marie-Louise Eta’s first game in proper charge and Football Manager players will know how she felt: Union lost 2-1, but created by far the better chances and conceded twice from an xG of just 0.19. Patrick Wimmer turned into Ricardo Quaresma for the afternoon, opening the scoring with this outrageous trivela. Dzenan Pejcinovic doubled the lead with another superb goal, curling in from the edge of the box. It was not Union’s day. But it was Wolfsburg’s, and they have given themselves a chance of avoiding relegation. St. Pauli and Wolfsburg face each other on the final day of the season. That game, at the Millerntor, could well decide who goes down. At the other end, RB Leipzig beat Eintracht Frankfurt 3-1 to move into a prime Champions League position. Here’s Yan Diomande’s sensational goal, which had more than a hint of Dimitri Payet to it. A World Cup alert: Antonio Nusa had an excellent game on the Leipzig left, which is very good news for Norway. Nusa can be a capricious player and in the biggest games can sometimes be guilty of trying too hard and taking on too many low-percentage opportunities. This was him at his best, though, and it seems as if he will take a good rhythm into the summer. A profligate Bayer Leverkusen performance at the BayArena might well cost them Champions League qualification. Leverkusen were a goal up against Augsburg, but were beaten by a 97th-minute Fabian Rieder penalty after teenage winger Montrell Culbreath was suckered into a naive tackle in his own box. Culbreath — who qualifies to play for the United States — is going to be a wonderful player, but this was a tough moment. It leaves Leverkusen down in 6th, four points behind Leipzig with four games left to play. To finish, a dip into the 3.Liga promotion race and a game between Rot-Weiss Essen and Energie Cottbus on Sunday, which has attracted an enormous amount of media attention over the weekend. This was second against fourth, in a league that has two automatic promotion spots and one relegation play-off place. Essen held a four-point advantage over fourth-placed Cottbus, who were level on points with Duisburg, but behind on goal difference. After 53 minutes, Cottbus’ season was fading, down 3-1 at home and at risk of dropping out of the promotion play-offs. There are 20 teams in the 3.Liga and this was the 34th game, so there are still four weekends to go, but a three-point gap to Duisburg — who had beaten Hoffenheim’s second team 3-1 on Saturday — would have been a chasm at this time of year. Enter Tolcay Cigerci, a 31-year-old winger. Cigerci is a journeyman. He played 18 minutes at Bundesliga level for Hamburg in 2014, but fell down the leagues quickly thereafter. The bulk of his career has been spent in the fourth tier, before moving to Cottbus in 2024, where — this season — he has been prolific: 17 goals and 11 assists in 34 league appearances. And that includes this nine-minute hat-trick (73min, 79min, 82min) that turned a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead and, eventually, a 5-3 win. Here’s the commentary for his third goal, as he completed the second-fastest treble in 3.Liga history. A post shared by MAGENTA SPORT (@magentasport) It was still not enough to lighten his head coach’s mood, though. Claus-Dieter Wollitz was annoyed by the tone of the questioning last week, after a 1-0 defeat by Osnabruck, believing it to be overly negative and disrespectful. In response, he declined all of his press duties on Sunday, refusing to speak to Magenta TV, the league’s broadcaster, before, during and after the game. In his press conference after the win, he told gathered journalists that “they were welcome to ask questions and let’s see if I answer, but I would prefer to stay silent”. Cottbus now sit in third place, one point behind Essen in one of the automatic spots, and are in possession of that relegation play-off spot (which would see them face the 16th-placed team from the division above across two legs) ahead of Sunday’s game at Viktoria Koln. And while head coach Wollitz may not be happy with the media, he was evidently pleased enough with his players, who have been given two days off as a reward for their brilliant comeback and will now not be expected back at training until Wednesday morning. Cottbus have been gone for a long time. Situated in the north east of Germany, right on the Polish border, they were relegated from the Bundesliga in 2009 and kept on falling, going from the top flight of German football to Regionalliga level (fourth tier) in just eight years. During that period, they more often made headlines for the actions of their fans, among whom there is a far-right presence responsible for an array of repellent moments, including the promotion of white supremacy, antisemitism, and Nazi-era slogans. The club have spoken out in opposition to that behaviour. Other Cottbus fan groups have also been formed in opposition to it, but it is an association that remains strong and which the club continues to fight. On the pitch, there is an improvement. Were they to win promotion this season, it would be Cottbus’ first time back in the 2.Bundesliga in more than a decade, having been relegated from the division in 2014. Coincidentally, that was the same season that Tolcay Cigerci was enjoying his 18 minutes in the big time. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms