With the first half of this season’s Bundesliga action finally complete, there are already patterns forming in the league. You could say that the season has been fairly straightforward for the most part, but it has thrown up its fair share of surprises.

Teams like Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, both pre-season title favourites, have been battling for top spot for most of the season and even though they finished the Hinrunde as winter champions, Bayern still have a tough road ahead with a handful of teams still in contention for the Bundesliga crown.

Of course, cast one eye towards some of the teams who succeeded the season before and their struggles, though inevitable, do showcase the famed unpredictability of the Bundesliga.

Here are a handful of teams who could be classified as overachievers and underachievers based on their respective performances from last season.

The Overachievers

Borussia Mönchengladbach

The season’s biggest surprise has been Borussia Mönchengladbach. The team were initially relegation candidates; especially after narrowly avoiding it last year, it seemed like a safe bet. Lucien Favre and his men performed a miracle in 2010/11 by clawing their way off the bottom. But with their tame transfer activity in the summer it looked like it would be yet another difficult season for the Foals.

Still, Gladbach already had a vast amount of talent at their disposal. It goes without saying that players like Juan Arango and Dortmund-bound Marco Reus were key to Gladbach’s success but 2011 has been a breakthrough year for various players as well. Favre’s tactics have gotten the best out of this relatively young group of players. This tactically different side have caused such a stir in the league and their momentum has carried over from last season into this one.

Gladbach are now in a very strong position going into the Rückrunde. They are currently fourth in the table and should be able to push the teams above them all the way to the end. It might be a bit difficult to see what will happen with the team’s talisman, Marco Reus, already set to leave the club in the summer but if the motivation remains, Gladbach can definitely go places.

Werder Bremen

Werder Bremen have gone almost completely under the radar in the first half of this season. Under such little attention, they find themselves just behind Gladbach in fifth place. After a far from stellar performance last season, which exposed the team’s inability to defend anything, Thomas Schaaf has managed to get his team to step up this season.

Werder can thank their brilliant home form for their success so far. They’ve done so well on home soil that only Dortmund have walked away from the Weserstadion with any points. The defence has been considerably solidified with Brazilian center back, Naldo, back from injury and the arrival of Sokratis Papastathopoulos on loan from Genoa. And even though they aren’t close to the best defensive pairing in the league, they have still improved the team defensively from last season.

Werder have had a good stroke of luck as well with injury-prone striker Claudio Pizarro rarely missing a match. As a result, the league’s most prolific non-German player, has scored 12 of Werder Bremen’s 30 goals so far this season.

A lot of the club’s season will depend on the fitness of their key men but if they can keep the likes of Pizarro and Naldo healthy and more importantly, out of the hands of other teams, the Bremen club could easily try to make amends for their poor Champions League outing in 2010.

The Underachievers

Hamburger SV

Based on recent form it’s probably unfair to have HSV on here. However, before the appointment of Thorsten Fink, HSV were in a terrible place. Under Michael Oenning the team failed to find any sort of form and were firmly stuck to the bottom of the table.

Frank Arnesen joining from Chelsea in the summer was supposed to be a pivotal moment. He brought in an array of talent who struggled to make it in London. And from then on the spotlight was on Hamburg. Even though the truth was that the transition to a younger generation of footballers would have taken a while anyway, the expectation was quickly piled onto the club by media and fans alike.

Understandably, with the tactics all wrong, coupled with a largely inexperienced squad, there was never much of a chance of them really achieving much and HSV slumped to the bottom of the table with little fight. Cue the hiring of Fc Basel manager Thorsten Fink. Under Fink, HSV have completely turned their fortunes around and now are in a fairly comfortable position going into the next stage of the season.

1. FSV Mainz 05

Mainz have fallen from the heights they set last season. After shocking the league by storming to the top of the league at the start of 2010/11, they finished in fifth place despite a serious decline in form. They were able to make it to the qualifying rounds of the Europa League for the first time in their history but their inability to get through to the group stages foreshadowed what was to follow in the league.

The demise of Mainz could have been predicted when their three most influential players in André Schürrle, Lewis Holtby and Christian Fuchs left the club. They did their best to get replacements long before the trio departed but there was always the risk that they would fail to impress. And that’s exactly what has happened. Thomas Tuchel has a real uphill battle on his hands and the way things are going, this could very well be a grim season for the club; possibly ending in relegation.

Freiburg

Freiburg has been another team that has fallen from grace. Under coach, Robin Dutt they finished in a comfortable mid-table spot after challenging for European for most of last season. This season however, without the tactician at the helm, they find themselves at the bottom of the table for the winter break.

Freiburg’s major weakness has been their dependency on Papiss Cissé. The striker has been involved in almost all of Freiburg’s goals this season and they struggle when he’s having an off day. Marcus Sorg was sacked just days into the winter break in an attempt to turn the club around. It’ll be interesting to see if assistant coach, Christian Streich, can step into the role. As history goes, assistant coaches stepping up don’t often succeed. Yet there is always a chance that can change and Streich will have 17 games to try and save Freiburg from relegation.

There’s still a lot of football to be played this season. A lot can change in 17 games as we’re more than familiar with in the Bundesliga. We could well be profiling a completely different list of teams come the end of the season.

Photo courtesy of SBNation.