Harry Kane had another great weekend on Matchday 23, taking his tally to 27 goals already this season - while Bayer Leverkusen and St. Pauli also had cause for celebrations. - © MICHAELA STACHE (Bayern v Leipzig) /DFL (collage)

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Devastating double jabs from Harry Kane and Maximilian Beier among Matchday 23 talking points

25.02.2024

Leverkusen and St. Pauli march on while there were goals everywhere you looked in the Bundesliga this weekend. bundesliga.com casts its eye over the big talking points as we enter a thrilling stage of the season.

Cometh the hour, cometh the Kane

If he were a boxer, he'd be Harry 'The Hitman' Kane. A devastating one-two from the fleet-footed English striker left RB Leipzig floored at the Allianz Arena on Saturday night and helped revive the record champions from their own woozy spell. Reeling from a run of three successive losses in all competitions, Bayern needed a way to bounce back to life and Kane's brace provided just that, the 30-year-old's 26th and 27th Bundesliga goals of the season bringing the smiles back to FCB faces and helping to earn a hugely-important win in Bayern's attempts to keep division leaders Bayer Leverkusen at least at arm's length.

That Kane's match winner arrived in injury time made home relief all the more palpable for Thomas Tuchel's men - who found themselves 11 points adrift of first place going into a Matchday 23 encounter against an always dangerous Leipzig.

Kane's numbers are simply astounding, the forward needing just 23 top-tier games to reach 27 goals, an unmatched feat in the Bundesliga. What's more, the Londoner can now boast 32 goal involvements (27 goals, five assists) in his thus far brief time in the Bundesliga while he has managed to score two or more times on seven occasions. "We need more connection among one another," Kane told bundesliga.com after his latest brace. "I felt that we had that earlier on in the season (but) in the last few weeks we haven't, so hopefully we can build on today," he added. With just 11 more Bundesliga games to go, Kane has plenty of time to build on his own personal tally yet.

Bayer Record-kusen?

The monickers of old painting Bayer Leverkusen as perennial runners-up are beginning to show serious cracks. Sure, Xabi Alonso's supercharged Bundesliga leaders haven't won anything yet, but setting an important new unbeaten record for a Bundesliga team has the feel of something very significant. A Friday-night triumph against Mainz meant that the Werkself extended their undefeated sequence to 33 games, surpassing Bayern's previous best between 2020 and 2021, and all in a single season too.

"It wasn't our best game, but the three points are very important," winning coach Alonso said after Bayer's 2-1 victory, which helped his side to establish an eight-point lead at the top of the standings. Having never before managed to score 59 goals or rack up 61 points at this stage of a campaign, Leverkusen are creating history in a treble-chasing season that looks set to end with the team finally discarding their unwanted nickname.

Pauli pushing for promotion

There is now a six-point gap between the top two in Bundesliga 2 after St. Pauli edged out second-place Holstein Kiel in a seven-goal thriller on Friday night. Having been beaten just once all season, Pauli are now well on course to return to the top-flight for the first time since suffering Bundesliga relegation at the end of the 2010/11 campaign.

The game itself was everything you could hope for from a pair of promotion rivals, with Pauli initially racing into a three-goal, first-half lead and then making it 4-1 with half an hour to play. But Kiel struck back twice to set up a grandstand finish, producing the perfect advertisement for German football’s second division.

“Today was about one thing only and that was three points,” said Australian star Jackson Irvine after clinching victory. “We had to win this game no matter what.” Pauli did just that and their perennial Rückrunde problems of recent years appear to be behind them under the excellent tutelage of Fabian Hürzeler.

The 30-year-old coach said the Kiel game “was too much excitement for me today”, and he’d surely take a few more boring wins between now and the end of the season but, as long as Pauli can get over the line at the end of Matchday 34, everyone at the Millerntor-Stadion will be delighted.

Beier blasts build buzz

Germany U21 striker Maximilian Beier was long since highlighted as one of the rising stars of the Bundesliga and a brilliant brace that took Hoffenheim to a 3-2 win in Dortmund has seen his profile soar even further.

Granted, the talented young striker had a bit of fortune in his first goal with a big deflection from Nico Schlotterbeck, but there was no doubting the clinicalness of his finish three second-half minutes later, as Hoffenheim completed a shock turnaround.

"We pulled together as a team and we came out knowing we had nothing to lose," Beier told bundesliga.com afterwards. "We just wanted to play, we wanted to have fun playing and try to turn it around."

That kind of fearlessness has taken Beier to ten goals already this campaign - with a bright future surely in store for the centre-forward, and Hoffenheim back in the race for European spots after moving up to seventh.

Watch: Beier brace as Hoffenheim win in Dortmund

Goal guarentee

The Bundesliga is enjoying a bumper season for goals, but Matchday 23 featured a first - namely the first time this season that all 18 top-flight clubs have found the net within a matchday.

What is it that saw nets bulge all over Germany? Perhaps it is the share of world-class goalscorers in the Bundesliga, with the likes of Donyell Malen and Omar Marmoush joining Kane and Beier on the scoresheet, while Kevin Behrens netted his first goal for Wolfsburg.

It could just be something to do with the time of year too. With spring almost upon us and a relentless title race matched by a scramble for European spots and hard-fought scrap to avoid relegation, it is safe to say all 18 teams have big aims in their sights over the next three months.

Whatever the reason, it has been a treat for Bundesliga followers everywhere, with a pair of 2-2 draws in Berlin and Frankfurt along with Hoffenheim's five-goal thriller in Dortmund and a 5-2 triumph for Gladbach against Bochum.

Roll on Matchday 24, which starts this Friday with Freiburg hosting Bayern Munich!