On the evening of the 28th matchday, Thomas Tuchel's Bayern maintains its two points lead over Borussia (59 against 57), but did not really reassure against the poorly ranked Hoffenheim in its Allianz Arena, four days from hosting Manchester City in the quarter-final return of the Champions League (3-0 for the Citizens in the first leg).

To hope to reach the last four of European football's premier competition, Munich will have to score at least three goals, and the offensive performance against Hoffenheim has enough to worry Bayern fans, especially in the first 45 minutes.

Still without his Cameroonian centre-forward Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, in the recovery phase and hoped for Wednesday against City, Thomas Tuchel has once again lined up Serge Gnabry at the forefront of the Munich attack without much success.

The changes made on the hour mark by Tuchel (Mathys Tel and Jamal Musiala for Kingsley Coman and Leroy Sané, in particular) brought a little more dangerous situations.

As in Freiburg last week, the flaw in Hoffenheim's defence came from a Bavarian defender. On a corner by Joshua Kimmich badly negotiated by the Hoffenheim defence, Coman was able to shoot at the entrance of the box. His crushed strike found Benjamin Pavard who was able to open the scoring for the ten-time reigning German champions.

After a double in Munich against Augsburg for the 24th matchday in mid-March, the French international confirms his good form of the moment, he who also scored with the Blues in Ireland in qualification for Euro 2024 at the end of March.

French defender Benjamin Pavard, scorer for Bayern against Hoffenheim, on April 15, 2023 in Munich © Christof STACHE / AFP

Dortmund cracks against Stuttgart

Bayern, who were playing without Sadio Mané, suspended by the club following his altercation with Leroy Sané in Manchester, suffered in the second half and Hoffenheim logically equalized on a direct free kick from Andrej Kramaric in the 71st minute.

In Stuttgart, Dortmund did not take advantage of the boulevard opened by the Munich to return to tie at the top of the Bundesliga, in a completely crazy game.

Edin Terzic's men led by two goals in the first half by Sebastien Haller (26th) and Donyell Malen (34th) and played almost an hour in numerical superiority after the exclusion of Konstantinos Mavrapanos (39th). But they saw Stuttgart come back to score through Tanguy Coulibaly (77th) and Josha Vagnoman (84th), and regained the lead in added time of the second half by Giovanni Reyna (90+2).

But they failed to maintain that lead in that interminable added time and it was Silas who equalised for Stuttgart in the seventh minute beyond regulation time.

These two points will hurt Dortmund, who had previously lost only five points in 2023 in the Bundesliga (31 out of 36), including their defeat on the lawn of the Allianz Arena on April 1 during the Klassiker against Bayern Munich (4-2).

Behind the leading duo, Leipzig won on its lawn against Augsburg (3-2) thanks to a double from its German striker Timo Werner.

Still without Christopher Nkunku, Leipzig climbs the podium of the Bundesliga with 51 points, pending the match of Union Berlin on Sunday (17:30) against Bochum, who can regain their three points lead over Leipzig if they win.

© 2023 AFP