Bundesliga matchday 26 opened with a big game at the bottom of the table, as Borussia Mönchengladbach beat St.Pauli 2-0. 

The biggest Saturday afternoon Bundesliga game saw Bayer Leverkusen host Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund played Augsburg, Eintracht Frankfurt faced Heidenheim, and Hoffenheim were against strugglers Wofsburg.

Here are the three things we learnt: 

Chaos in Leverkusen:

The standout game of the afternoon was Leverkusen vs Bayern, and it delivered.

Kasper Hjulmand’s side took an early lead through Aleix Garcia, and then it was more or less the focus of the referee and VAR.

First, Jonathan Tah would have a goal ruled out for handball. Then Bayern would be down to 10 men when Nicolas Jackson’s tackle on Martin Terrier (similar to Nico Schlotterbeck’s two weeks ago), was overturned from a yellow to a red. 

In the second half, Leverkusen became their own worst enemy and were too sloppy on the ball, constantly giving easy passes away, and it looked as if they were punished when Janis Blaswich played a pass straight to a Bayern player, who squared it to Kane to make it 1-1, but VAR intervened once again.

The Bundesliga leaders would get their equaliser when Luis Diaz made it 1-1, minutes later. D

Diaz would then be sent off for a second yellow card, following a dive in the Leverkusen box, meaning Bayern were now down to nine men.  

It looked as if Jonas Hofmann had scored the winner in the 93rd minute; however, VAR would intervene once again to rule it out for offside.

So, if you were keeping count, two red cards, three goals disallowed and VAR getting involved four times. 

The good news is that next month, these two teams will go at it once again in the DFB Pokal semi-final at the BayArena. 

Dieter Hecking fails to win his first game for Wolfsburg:

For the past few weeks, you could make the argument that Wolfsburg were unlikely with their results, and their performances warranted something better.

Today, in their first game under Dieter Hecking, that was not the case; in fact, it was the opposite.

Wolfsburg only mustered two shots on target, one of them being the opening goal from Konstantinos Koulierakis, and another a shot from Jonas Wind. They played less than half the number of passes Hoffenheim did (261 vs 537, via FotMob), and overall, they really rode their luck. So when Grischa Prömel made it 1-1 in the 83rd minute, justice was served. 

What made this horrible performance even more surprising is that Mohamed Amoura played alongside Dzenan Pejcinovic, and behind them, there were two creative midfielders in Christian Eriksen and Jesper Lindstrøm. 

If Hecking’s task of trying to retain Wolfsburg’s Bundesliga status looked like a challenge before this weekend, this performance has made it even more difficult. 

Luca Reggiani scores his first Bundesliga goal:

With Dortmund’s season now over, they can afford to give more game time to young players, and it has started to bear fruit. 

Luca Reggiani was handed his first start against RB Leipzig only a few weeks ago, and against Augsburg, he scored his first goal for die Schwarzgelben. 

The 18-year-old won 80% of his ground duels, as well as 100% of his aerial duels (via FotMob), and along with fellow Italian Samuele Inacio, should be given more game time throughout the Bundesliga season to develop. Meaning next year, he could become a regular in the starting 11, especially with the departure of Niklas Süle in the summer. 

Elsewhere in the Bundesliga:

• Eintracht Frankfurt beat Heidenheim 1-0. This now makes it only one loss since Albert Riera replaced Dino Toppmöller. Add to this, die Adler have now kept three clean sheets in a row. Showing that their defensive issues at the start of the season, may have been a structural issue.