The Bielefeld team has not been very good at scoring goals this season. The next venue promises little change. Yet the prospect of a new record since 1998 beckons there …
Ten goals scored in 14 games this season – by some distance the worst record in the entire league. That things will get better for the Bielefeld side this weekend is not to be expected from a purely statistical point of view. In 26 matches between Arminia and their next opponents Hertha BSC, there have never been more than four goals scored in a single match. Neither team has ever scored more than three goals.
And Berlin’s Olympiastadion might not be the ideal venue to change the balance either. In the past ten first division games there, the East Westphalians have scored just three goals in total, scored by quite prominent ex-players. In the 1-1 draw in April 1998, European champion Stefan Kuntz, now Turkey’s national coach, scored for Arminia. In April 2007, the Czech Radim Kucera scored – the final score was also 1-1. And just over a year later, when the score was once again 1-1, Artur Wichniarek scored for Bielefeld, a man who also wore the jersey of Hertha BSC in his career.
The goal ratio also has its positive side
Now the question at the penultimate in the slugfest for goals is: can a current Bielefeld player set a new record in the capital with a brace after 24 years on Saturday? At least there are perhaps good omens for more spectacle. While Hertha scored 15 goals on the debut of new coach Tayfun Korkut in a 2-2 draw in Stuttgart, equalling their own season high, Arminia achieved the same feat in a 1-1 draw at home to 1. FC Köln.
Despite this, Arminia’s current goal ratio also has its positive side. Despite their poor record of just one win, seven draws and six defeats, the club have only conceded fewer goals twice in their Bundesliga history after 14 matchdays: 17 in 2006/07 and only 15 in 2004/05. However, they have only ever scored as few goals themselves as they do at present: nine in the previous season.
