Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich and champions Borussia Dortmund don’t want to be frozen out in their weekend evening games at SV Hamburg and Nuremberg.
Bayern and Dortmund are level on points along with Schalke, and Borussia Moenchengladbach are just one behind in a hot title race.
Temperatures in Nuremberg are to dip below minus 10 degrees Celsius by kick-off on Friday night, but Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp is neither concerned by the weather nor by the absence of injured Mario Goetze.
“Temperatures below freezing are part of the business just as rain. We are prepared for it,” said Klopp.
Nuremberg posted guidelines to their fans on their website how to dress against the cold and have promised additional stalls offering tea in the stadium, but it remains to be seen whether the 13th-placed team can warm the fans’ hearts as well.
“Dortmund are the top team for me at the moment. Of course everything must fall into place if we want to get points. You need a little luck against such teams,” said coach Dieter Hecking.
Munich once played a European cup game in Moscow in minus 15 and coach Jupp Heynckes may use battery-charged heated soles in his shoes to stay warm in freezing Hamburg, as he did during his reign at Bayer Leverkusen in a minus 16 degrees continental game at Norway’s Trondheim.
Munich don’t want to be caught out cold again two weeks after their 3-1 defeat in Moenchengladbach, and were far from glorious as well in last week’s 2-0 against Wolfsburg.
Hamburg are placed eighth in a mediocre campaign at best, but their (Dortmund-born) coach Thorsten Fink hopes for a good showing against the club he used to play for between 1997 and 2003.
“Of course it is a special game … (But) we can’t make concessions to big clubs and want to win the next game, and that is against Bayern Munich,” said Fink.
Schalke and Moenchengladbach are in action on Saturday afternoon against Mainz and in Wolfsburg, respectively, before facing each other a week later.
At least as dramatic as the title fight is the battle against relegation which effectively starts with eighth-placed Hoffenheim, who are just five points ahead of the drop zone.
The 11-team struggle against the drop prompted sports magazine Kickeer to the headline “Fear of the Frankfurt curse” on Thursday, in reference to Eintracht Frankfurt’s plunge from seventh at the halfway mark to the second division by the end of the past season.
The reference will especially chill VfB Stuttgart, Cologne and Hertha Berlin, who are yet to earn a point since the Bundesliga restart from hibernation.
Hertha host Hanover and Stuttgart are at Leverkusen on Saturday, while Cologne are in Kaiserslautern on Sunday. The other games are Hoffenheim versus Augsburg on Saturday, and Freiburg plays Werder Bremen on Sunday.
