Bayern 4-2 Stuttgart: Bundesliga Match Report

Bayern 4-2 Stuttgart was over as a contest by the interval and entertaining afterwards. Bayern led 3-1 at half-time and the second period finished 1-1, so Stuttgart came out two behind and went off two behind, having traded a goal apiece in between. Six goals in a fixture between first and fourth is not the norm; three in the opening half from the home side is what made it possible.

Bayern arrived on 76 points from 29 matches with a goal difference of +78 — a figure roughly two and a half times Dortmund's +30 in second, and the single clearest number in the German season. Twelve points separated the top two. Stuttgart were fourth on 56 with +22 from the same 29 games, holding the last Champions League place with Hoffenheim on 54 immediately behind them.

The pattern held from December, when the sides met in Stuttgart and Bayern won 5-0. Bayern's recent run was four wins in five with the only dropped points a 1-1 at Leverkusen, and it included a 5-0 at St. Pauli. Stuttgart had won three of five, beaten Leipzig 1-0 and Augsburg 5-2, and lost 0-2 at home to Dortmund. They were in decent order and were still beaten by two.

Bayern went to 79 points and a goal difference of +80, extending the lead at the top to fifteen over Dortmund with four rounds to play. At that margin the table stops being a race and becomes a countdown, and the goal difference had reached a level no other side in the division could approach.

Stuttgart stayed on 56 with the difference dropping to +20. They kept fourth place, but the cushion to Hoffenheim was down to two points and their goal difference — the tiebreak that decides these arguments — had just been cut by two. The gap to the leaders widened from twenty to twenty-three. For a side whose season was about qualifying rather than competing, losing at Bayern cost less in points than it did in the margins that would settle the places below.

Our pre-match call was Bayern Win & Over 2.5 Goals at 1.65. Both halves of it landed, and the goals half was never in question: Bayern had three by the interval. The reasoning was that a fixture between the division's most prolific side and a fourth-placed team that attacks rather than sits in would produce goals whoever won, and that Bayern at home were the only plausible winner. The combined bet is riskier than it reads — a 1-0 kills it as surely as a defeat — but with a +78 goal difference on one side, the total was the safer leg. Verdict: won