Holiday weekend of sports in review

Munich, November 1 - This weekend was a pre-cursor for what we should expect the next two months:  the holidays and lots of sports.  So for those of you who were out of town (and may still be out but checking our pages to catch up), here's a quick review!

FC Bayern moving on up - Martin Demichelis returned to the lineup and scored the first goal in FCB's 4-2 win at the Allianz Arena Friday night against SC Freiburg.  Mario Gomez, Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, and Toni Kroos added goals to help Bayern stay unbeaten in their last three matches.  FCB trail first place Dortmund by 10 points, but sit only 3 points off a Champions League qualification spot for next year.

Despite the rough start to this year, the team can still catch up with the Bundesliga leaders.  The key reason is the team is unbeaten in the Champions League and can secure their way into the next round by Wednesday when they travel Romania to take on CFR 1907 Cluj.  Bayern have a good chance for another victory Saturday as they are at last place Monchengladbach and return home on November 14th for a Bavarian Derby against 1.FC Nürnberg.

1860 quietly solid, unbeaten in last 7 matches - It's not yet a roar, but the Lions are starting to growl and move their way up the 2.Bundesliga table.  After their 4-2 victory in Karsruhe Saturday, 1860 sit 7 points from promotion and only 5 points from a playoff to earn their way back to the top flight.  Benjamin Lauth scored two goals to keep the team's positive streak going.  They now sit in 8th place.

TSV host Alemmania Aachen at the 'double A' on Sunday, kickoff time 13:30.  Like Munich, Aachen have 16 points and are coming off a victory last weekend as well.  This match may be a huge litmus test regarding 1860's chances of promotion.

EHC lose two on the road - After an impressive 7-4 win last Thursday night at home against Hamburg, EHC fell flat twice on the road over the weekend.  On Saturday, they lost to the Ice Bears in Berlin 4-2 and complete shut down in a 5-nil loss at the hands of the Iserlohn Roosters last night.

The team is thin with injuries but are sitting strong at 5th in the table.  EHC skate back into action on Friday night at the Olympia Eissportzentrum against local rivals the Augsburg Panthers.  Face-off at 20:20.

Bayern Basketball suffers first defeat of the season - Head coach Dirk Bauermann called Bayern's last home game 'their worst showing of the season' despite a victory.  One can only wonder what words he shared with the team after their first defeat of the season, a 63-55 loss to the s.Oliver Baskets in Würzburg Saturday night.  Center Darius Hall was the only player for FCB in double figures with 13 points.  Jonathan Wallace was held to only 5 points, way under his 20 points per game average.

The team had mentioned going undefeated in their mission to get promoted to the BBL, but could never get their rhythm at the start for the second consecutive match.  This time, Bayern could never recover as the Baskets rode the sold out crowd to a victory.  "The Baskets were the better team today and thus deserved the victory," said Bauermann.  "We will continue to practice in the next weeks and prepare for the next home game against Essen.  Today's loss does not change our goal to earn promotion into the BBL."  The match against Essen is Saturday at the Eissportzentrum, tip-off at 19:30.

RIP Paul - And finally, in case you missed it, the Oracle Octopus Paul who earned fame over the summer for predicting the winner in all of Germany's matches during the World Cup and the final between Spain and the Netherlands was found dead in his aquarium last Tuesday, October 26th.  Paul predicted Germany's matches since the 2008 Euros.  He was wrong picking Germany to win against Spain in the finals of that tournament, but learned his lesson and earned the ire of German football fans by picking the Spaniards in 2010.

At least he died in retirement after his owner said no more predictions after the tournament.  His agent (yes, this octopus had an agent) Chris Davies, said "It's a sad day, Paul was rather special, but we managed to film Paul before he left this mortal earth."

The Munich Times asks anyone close to Paul's success rate of 86% to contact me immediately at sports@themunicheye.com to help me with my football picks of the week.

This coming weekend will be busy for all the teams in the city, we will preview it all on Friday.