Team of Week 29: Dortmund stars dominate, prolific Ducksch, impassable Tah sparkle

BUNDESLIGA Team of Week 29: Dortmund stars dominate, prolific Ducksch, impassable Tah sparkle

Seye Omidiora 09:41 - 24.04.2023

Following every round of Bundesliga fixtures, Pulse Sports presents the most impressive performers of the matchday.

Borussia Dortmund may have missed the chance to upstage Bayern Munich in round 28, but they took advantage of FC Hollywood’s loss at Mainz this time.

Here are some of the best performers from the Bundesliga weekend.

Pulse Sports Bundesliga Team of Week 29

Goalkeeper

Lukas Hradecky (Bayer Leverkusen)

Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen side may have defeated RB Leipzig 2-0, but the hosts faced a barrage of shots for most of the game, conceding 26 to their seven.

Even though many of those attempts were blocked and several were off-target, Hradecky was dependable between the sticks to prevent Leipzig from scoring.

The shot-stopper made five stops throughout the game to keep a clean sheet, seeing Alonso’s side rise to the top of the form table, having picked up 13 points from an available 15.

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Defenders

Lukas Kubler (Freiburg)

Freiburg leapfrogged Leipzig into fourth with a 4-0 victory over second-bottom Schalke, with Kubler playing a part in the comfortable triumph.

The right-back’s positive play was rewarded with an assist for Michael Gregoritsch’s strike in the 35th minute, his first of 2022-23.

Mats Hummels (Borussia Dortmund)

Dortmund kicked off on Saturday evening needing to beat Eintracht Frankfurt to supplant Bayern atop the table, and they did just that with a 4-0 thrashing of last season’s Europa League winners.

Hummels even got in on the act, scoring BVB’s third in the comfortable victory with a header from Raphael Guerreiro’s delivery.

Goalscoring is not the centre-back’s merit, but he opened his Bundesliga account for the season in a game Edin Terzic’s side needed to win.

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Jonathan Tah (Bayer Leverkusen)

Hradecky made several saves, but Tah put his body in the way of shots several times and even made a goal-line intervention for Leverkusen in their win over Leipzig.

The centre-back also made five interceptions, six recoveries and did not shy away from clearing the ball from danger when necessary (making five clearances).

Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund)

Guerreiro leads the way for assists at Dortmund this season, and the left-back added another in Saturday’s thrashing of Frankfurt.

The Portugal international’s assist for Hummels was his 12th of the campaign, and his tendency to fashion opportunities for teammates puts Dortmund in good stead in their title challenge.

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Midfielders

Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund)

Bellingham got on the scoresheet in BVB’s success over Frankfurt, shooting at goal from just inside the area to open the scoring after 19 minutes.

The Englishman’s strike was his fifth in the Bundesliga this season, and it helped to calm frayed nerves at Signal Iduna Park.

Mattias Svanberg (Wolfsburg)

Svanberg was instrumental as Wolfsburg blew Bochum to smithereens in a resounding 5-1 triumph.

The midfielder began the rout in the first half that produced three goals in the opening half-hour before adding his second after the break.

Wolfsburg rose to eighth in the division after the victory over the relegation-threatened side.

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Forwards

Donyell Malen (Borussia Dortmund)

Malen’s outstanding recent form continued in Dortmund’s rout of Frankfurt when he netted the team’s second and fourth goals to seal a comfortable victory for Terzic’s side.

The forward has netted in his last three Bundesliga appearances, scoring four times in total and assisting another, to take his goal involvements to 10.

With BVB in the title race, the Netherlands attacker is hitting a rich vein of form at the right time.

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Florian Kainz (Koln)

Koln extended their unbeaten in the Bundesliga to four games following a 3-1 victory against a Hoffenheim side that had won two successive home games before the weekend.

Kainz was decisive in the victory, netting an 18th-minute penalty to send the visitors ahead before setting up Davie Selke with half-time approaching.

Interestingly, those were the attacking midfielder’s first goal contributions since mid-February.

Jakub Kaminski (Wolfsburg)

Kaminski got among the goals for Wolfsburg, who ended their three-game run without a league win with a blitz against Bochum.

The wide attacker doubled the away side’s advantage in the 21st minute, taking the 20-year-old to two goals in his debut Bundesliga campaign.

Marvin Ducksch (Werder Bremen)

Undoubtedly the player of the week, Ducksch was Bremen’s hat-trick hero in their 4-2 triumph over Hertha Berlin, ending a wretched run of results that saw Die Werderaner go two months without success.

That luckless run lasted six games, so Ducksch’s heroics in Berlin were just what the doctor ordered for a striker who has now risen to 11 Bundesliga strikes this term after his weekend’s treble.

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