The Daily Bee (February 25th, 2019): Matchday 23 - BVB retain the lead

• Matchday 23 recap

Borussia Dortmund have ended a streak of 5 games without a win across three competitions with a hard fought 3:2 over Bayer Leverkusen. The game was tricky but BVB was able to grind out a crucial win and maintain a 3-point lead over Bayern.

The Bavarians also won a close game on Saturday against Hertha BSC Berlin with 1:0. Surprisingly Bayern struggled to create many chances throughout the game and on top of that Kingsley Coman picked up an injury.

Borussia Mönchengladbach lost 0:3 to Wolfsburg and are now out of the title race for good. However they could do Dortmund a favor and take points off of Bayern next week. Wolfsburg on the other hand are in 5th place and look to close tthe gap on Leipzig and Gladbach to sneak into the Champions League.

Eintracht Frankfurt have climbed back into 6th place thanks to their 3:0 win over Hannover who despite the coaching change can’t seem to get on track.

The same could be said for Schalke who lost 0:3 to Mainz and are still in the relegation zone. On top of that Christian Heidel, their sporting director announced that he’ll leave the club at the end of the season. Just one year ago Schalke finished in second place and looked to be back among Germany’s elite but now they’re battling relegation and are out of a sporting director and possibly out of a coach if the club keeps losing.

Meanwhile both SC Freiburg, 5:1 over Augsburg and Fortuna Düsseldorf 2:1 over Nürnberg, got crucial wins and have secured a good position in the battle to avoid relegation.

RB Leipzig and TSG Hoffenheim will play the last game of matchday 23 today in a duel dubbed “El Plastico”. Leipzig could jump to third place with a win and Hoffenheim want to close the gap to the Europa League places.

• Reus back in training (kicker)

Marco Reus has resumed training after an absence of three weeks. BVB’s captain completed the entire training session with the players that didn’t get to play yesterday. Before the Leverkusen game Michael Zorc already confirmed that Reus would likely return against FC Augsburg this Friday.

• Brandt still has a release clause (kicker)

Julian Brandt is one of the most sought after young players in the Bundesliga and despite extending his contract last year he still has a release clause which will make it easy for any interested club to sign him. In his old contract Brandt had a release clause of just 12€ million and kicker claims that number has risen by 100% in his new contract which would mean a clause around 24€ million. This is still well below market value which makes him interesting for clubs like Dortmund and Bayern Munich.

Daily Buzz: Could Brandt be a good addition for BVB?