Ticket information for the first competitive match of the new season will follow in due course.

The German Football League (DFL) has confirmed the dates and kick-off times of Matchdays 17 to 19 in the Bundesliga. The Wolves’ opening game of 2023 – against SC Freiburg at the Volkswagen Arena on Matchday 16 (at 15:30 CET on 21 January) – had already been confirmed, but they can now start planning for their subsequent three encounters.

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Second-top travel to second-bottom – but Terzic doesn’t want to read much into this going into the match: ”It will be a game, like always, that is defined by emotion and intensity and in which the league table doesn’t tell us anything. All that matters is the 90 minutes.” It should also be noted that the league table from the second half of the season thus far tells a different story: BVB are top, with six wins from six games, while Schalke are seventh, with two wins and four draws. The Gelsenkirchen club have kept five clean sheets in these matches. 

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SV Werder Bremen will face FC Schalke 04 on Saturday evening (29/4, 18:30 CEST), another meeting against a direct rival who are fighting to stay in the league. After the away win against Hertha BSC, three points at Schalke could be a decisive step towards securing Werder’s place in the league. Head coach Ole Werner will again be without Niclas Füllkrug, but Marvin Ducksch and Niklas Schmidt are back in the squad after illness.

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This resulted in a scrappy affair and a second half in which both teams put in a gritty valiant effort, each to attain their own goal: Bayern simply wanted to keep the scoreline in their favour, while Hertha wished to take the game away from Bayern towards the end, enabling the clock to run down only to turn the intensity up a notch in the dying minutes. Kind of like a mouse trap, inviting the animal to its doom by feeding it niblets of cheese.

Sandro Schwarz continued with the 3-5-2 formation that the team have recently been using, for the charity game against Berliner AK. In front of Oliver Christensen’s goal, Agustín Rogel, Márton Dárdai and Marc Kempf made up the back three, with the latter two available to the head coach once again after injury. The wing-back positions were occupied by captain Marvin Plattenhardt and Jonjoe Kenny. The midfield-three was made up of Prince Boateng, Lucas Tousart and Tolga Ciğerci, with Wilfried Kanga and Marco Richter upfront. There were three U23 players on the bench in the shape of Joel da Silva Kiala, Mustafa Abdullatif and Nader Jindaoui.

After Werder Bremen’s 2-1 victory at TSG Hoffenheim in the reverse fixture, many fans on the Weser were hoping for a return to Europe. Fifth place was an impressive position for the promoted outfit to be in at the time – but the club officials remained objective and continued to label their survival as the sole objective for the season. This approach has paid off to date: Werder have never dropped below 11th place in the table this season.