The big freeze produced one big winner. Germany's winter so far: a mild December was followed by a warm January was followed by a frigging cold February. It's probably some strange global warming phenomenon again, or 2012, or... It meant that matchday 20 took place under arctic circumstances.

Marco Reus finds all the right answers to Bayern's trash talk. Reus' announcement to move to Dortmund in the summer, triggered a series of trademark taunts from down south during the winter break. Reus supposedly demanded a guaranteed starting spot at Bayern. He chickened from trying to fight for his place in the team.

Gladbach coach Lucien Favre is visibly delighted with his team's performance against Bayern Munich.

(Photo by Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty Images)

Raul → Draxler → Raul → Huntelaar → Draxler → Goal.

This is one of the better team goals you'll see this season. And what makes it even more remarkable, is the small fact, that it was scored by a team coached by all things defense expert Huub Stevens.

Na tactics can compensate for individual mistakes. Bayern's 3-0 win over Cologne was rich in absurdity. Ribery blew a fuse. The match ball blew out. Cologne blew a one man advantage. You could add Solbakken's one-off idea to bring back the five man backline to this list. Except, that it actually worked out pretty well to frustrate Bayern most of the time.

Bayern Munich are Autumn Champions. Barring a highly unlikely flurry of goals for and against the right teams. More than the virtual trophy, Bayern will cherish the three-point gap, they opened up at the top of the table, taking maximum advantage of the slip ups of both Borussias.

The Bundesliga doesn't get the concept of extra time. On paper the Bundesliga referees get it. It's up to them to decide, how much time was wasted through substitutions, injury delays, time wasting or excessive goal celebrations. It's OK for them to routinely add only one or two minutes or call it quits after exactly 90 minutes.

Bayern are catching up with Barcelona. Philipp Lahm may speak the truth but his sense of timing is really a bit off this season. Whether it is publishing memoirs in the middle of his career, or making bold claims a day ahead of embarrassing defeats for both Barcelona and Bayern. He just can't get it right.

There are ways to make life easier for referees. This weekend was dominated by a lot of talk about the difficult and ungrateful job a referee has to make. There has been a lot of talk about pressure. None of that talk might actually help Babak Rafati, as it's mere speculation, why he attempted suicide.

Kyle Barber wrote a review of Ronald Reng's recently translated book about Robert Enke. (Bundesliga Lounge) Nick Amies examined the reasons behind Mario Gomez' Super Mario form... (Deutsche Welle) Ryan Bailey wrote about how Union Berlin is planning to sell shares of its' soul.

Those were 150.000 Euros not well spent for Wolfsburg. Felix Magath loaned Aliaksandr Hleb from Barcelona for a special €100k per game and €50k per goal fee. Thus, Magath's total expenses for Saturday's trip to Dortmund added up to €150k, not counting the damage Dortmund's fresh in form offense caused all afternoon.

Bayern home games have a fascination of their own. For the past couple of seasons I developed the habit of watching the first half of a FC Barcelona game to cap off a hectic and unpredictable day of Bundesliga action. I did it less for the uncertainty of the result, but the uncertainty of how many goals Barca could score before the break.

Maybe Dortmund just weren't angry enough. Following through with this theory, I can't tell you what made them so angry last season. But they certainly felt pretty good about themselves and their chances in the Champions League coming out of the summer break. After losing to Olympiacos midweek (declaring bankruptcy, Euro crisis, any Greece related pun you like), they had to face up to the bitter reality of possibly spending next year out of the Euro zone (sorry).

Poor Michael Rensing. Alone, abandoned, faced with an onslaught of yellow players, bravely keeping the scoreline down to five. The only Cologne player who cared to show up on Saturday. Scenes from a goalkeeper's worst nightmare, or wet dream, depending on where you rate him on the Mad German Goalkeeper™ scale of one to ten.

Bayern signing Jupp Heynckes was the best thing to happen to Toni Kroos. The prototypical wunderkind to come out of Germany's reformed youth system, needed Heynckes to pop up at Leverkusen, to finally play his long awaited breakthrough season in the Bundesliga. Now that the two are reunited at Bayern, he could well establish himself at the top of German football, both at Bayern and the German national team.