Bundesliga's Goalfest & Türkiye's Emerging Stars

Aston Villa have finally scored some goals, PSG have already been beaten in Ligue 1, only Bayern Munich can still boast a 100% record and Wolves have became the final team across Europe’s Top 5 to win a point.

Crystal Palace are the real deal. Villarreal might be the real deal. Elche have been a revelation and Athletic Club had a torrid September. Real Madrid were cruising until Atletico Madrid came around and Harry Kane’s goalscoring exploits are making even Erling Braut Haaland seem pedestrian.

Amongst the newly promoted teams it’s not just Elche that are off to a flyer. Cremonese and Sunderland have both had remarkable starts to their campaigns too.

Barcelona, Elche, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Cremonese* all remain unbeaten.

Let’s jump in, starting with three things you need to know…

🧿 An exciting new generation of Turkish talent is making its mark

Arda Güler (20yo), Kenan Yıldız (20yo), Can Uzun (19yo). These three guys, still so young, have made a barnstorming start to the season.

Kenan Yıldız, the most experienced of the three has 6 games, 6 starts and 6 goal contributions for Juventus already. He was an ever-present for Juventus last season at the age of 19, amassing over 3,500 minutes of football and returning 19 goal contributions.

Arda Güler has 3 goals and 4 assists so far this season having started 8 of Real Madrid’s 9 games. Last season he made only 23 starts playing 2,200 minutes. He’ll eclipse those counts this season, and in doing so should fly past his 16 goal contributions too.

It’s the ‘youngster’, though, who’s stolen the show. Can Uzun has established himself as an indispensable part of Eintracht Frankfurt’s first eleven this season, delivering 10 goal contributions in his 8 games so far. He’s already racked-up over half the minutes he played last season and has surpassed his goal contributions tally of 7.

This exciting promise is yet to fully come to fruition with the national team, as the recent 6-0 demolition at the hands of Spain showed, but watch this space, there’s something special brewing.

⚽ The Bundesliga is a goalfest this season

If you love goals, the Bundesliga is the place to be right now. Through the first five matchdays it’s averaging 3.5 goals per game. The Premier League (2.6), La Liga (2.6), Ligue 1 (2.8) and Serie A (2.3) don’t come anywhere close.

29% of Bundesliga games this season have featured at least 5 goals, 16% of games have featured at least 6 goals. That’s mental. Just look at the scorelines we’ve had already through five matchweeks:

6:0, 4:1, 3:3, 3:3, 2:3, 4:1, 3:3, 2:4, 5:0, 1:4, 1:4, 3:4, 4:6.

That’s 13 games with at least 5 goals. The Premier League has 7 (having played 15 more games).

And it’s not just Bayern Munich thumping teams each week, although they are thumping teams each week. 7 different teams have scored 4+ goals in a game and 12 of the 18 teams have scored 3+ goals.

No team exemplifies the Bundesliga’s craziness quite like Werder Bremen. They fell to a 4:1 opening day defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt, but rebounded strongly with a 3:3 draw against Bayer Leverkusen and a 4:0 victory over Borussia Mönchengladbach. A 3:0 defeat to Freiburg and a 4:0 defeat to Bayern Munich have since followed. But they’re far from the only ones. Eintracht Frankfurt, the 4:1 victors over Werder Bremen, lost 3:4 to Union Berlin. Union Berlin paired that victory with a 2:4 defeat against to Hoffenheim. Hoffenheim, in turn, paired their big victory with a 1:4 defeat against Bayern Munich. FC Köln have a win and a draw in high-scoring games. It’s glorious madness.

And this doesn’t even include the antics German teams have been getting up to in European competition; Borussia Dortmund drew 4:4 against Juventus, Eintracht Frankfurt beat Galatasaray 5:1 and then lost 5:1 to Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich beat Pafos FC 5:1.

🦅How high can the Eagles fly?

Crystal Palace are flying high right now. You know the details; FA Cup winners, Community Shield winners, 18 games unbeaten, 3rd in the Premier League.

October brings around their foray into European competition and tough fixtures against Bournemouth, Arsenal and Liverpool (again).

We’d love to be talking about Palace as genuine title contenders, but it’s still early days. Let’s see what they can do…

😯 Can Elche, Cremonese and Sunderland keep it going?

As things stand, we have newly-promoted teams in 4th, 5th and 7th. It’s not unfair to say that nobody expected any of these teams to have started their campaigns back in the top division with such a bang. Cremonese are unbeaten through 5 games (including a victory against AC Milan) and Elche are unbeaten through 7 (including draws against Atletico Madrid and Real Betis). Sunderland aren’t unbeaten, but they’ve won 3 of 6 and collected 11 points already.

October brings tests aplenty for the new boys. Inter and Atalanta for Cremonese, Athletic Club for Elche and Manchester United and Chelsea for Sunderland. Sunderland also play Wolves in October, and could end the month with anywhere between zero and nine points.

🥊Can Lille or Strasbourg make Ligue 1 interesting?

In last month’s edition we highlighted that Marseille would be the first of Ligue 1’s ‘title pretenders’ to get a shot at a less-than-imperious PSG, and that they’d be relishing the chance. Marseille duly delivered, beating PSG 1:0. In October Lille and Strasbourg will get their chances as will Barcelona and Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League. Here’s hoping for something even remotely resembling a title race this season.

Football, bleakly. Harry’s newsletter is an incisive examination of our beautiful game, delivered in a trademark tone that mixes sardonic with wistful.

Bleakly’s latest piece was a dissection of the ‘title race’. As always it was on point and well worth a read. A title race hiding in plain sight.

Give it a go!