Every game had an interesting story to tell this weekend, every game but one: Hoffenheim's 0-0 draw against Augsburg was as uneventful and inconsequential as they come in Germany. The match in the Rhein-Neckar-Arena had seemingly made up its mind that being a real match was impossible as well as ill-fitting under the circumstances. "It did the best it could do," wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung, "it refused to play ball altogether and didn't let in any goals."

Late on, something of note did actually happen. The Hoffenheim midfielder Sead Salihovic was sent off for a violent foul and the coach, Markus Babbel, was banished to the stand after some irate words towards the official. But no one in nor outside the ground really cared. After the final whistle, the whole Hoffenheim team were wearing No7 shirts in front of the hardcore supporters' section. There was some applause, some chanting but mostly an awkward, anxious sadness. Because the man who usually wears No7 wasn't there: midfielder Boris Vukcevic is in an induced coma at a Heidelberg hospital following a head-on collision of his Mercedes with a truck on his way to training on Friday afternoon. The 22-year-old's condition was "still critical but stable," according to TSG's home page on Monday. He reportedly suffered extensive head injuries.

The Augsburg players had heard about the tragic accident on their way to their team hotel on Friday. "We honestly thought the game wouldn't be played ," said midfielder Tobias Werner. "We imagined what would happen if one of us had been involved." The Hoffenheim sporting director, Andreas Müller, explained: "The decision to go ahead with the game was incredibly difficult. My first reaction was to cancel the match." The DFL told the club it would agree to a postponement but after talks with the team psychologists, the players felt that playing the game was preferable "to each one going their own way" as the captain, Marvin Compper, put it. "We wanted to do something that connected us to Boris."

"Hope became the central aspect," added Müller, "the idea that we would play for Boris, fight for him here." It's what he would have wanted, the team thought. His parents agreed. They told the club the game should go ahead. The atmosphere in the stadium was simply too fraught, however. Everything from the pre-match music to the fans' singing was muted. While the police are investigating the exact cause of the crash, there's a distinct fear that news coming out of Heidelberg in the next few days will not be good.

Talking points

• "Everyone has failed here, including the bus driver," said a mightily angry Horst Heldt after Schalke's 2-2 draw away to Fortuna Düsseldorf. Said bus driver, the splendidly named Lars Laser, was actually not personally at fault for a draw that "felt like a 5-0 defeat" (Heldt) but it didn't matter. Frustration got the better of Heldt and the manager, Huub Stevens, who professed himself "unhappy with the whole team" after an "incredible performance" – of the very wrong kind. Schalke had been 2-0 up and coasting like Abramovich's "Le Grand Bleu" on a balmy Mediterranean night at half-time. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar had plenty of chances to add to his tally after his thunderous strike but missed. At the other end, the mistakes mounted until Daniel Schahin scored two to rescue a thoroughly unlikely point. The fact that the Royal Blues had finally put a stop to Düsseldorf's impressive run of five consecutive clean sheets was of no consolation. Heldt has threatened "a frank exchange of views" before Montpellier turn up in the Champions League on Wednesday.

• Dortmund, however, can approach the trip to Manchester City with renewed confidence. A "world class" (Jürgen Klopp) performance from Marco Reus (two goals) against his former club coupled with some awful defending from the visiting Foals resulted in the most convincing win of the season for the champions: 5-0. "It's been my dream since I'm 15, 16 to play against such big names," said the defender Mats Hummels ahead of the trip to the Etihad. The last time he met Mario Balotelli, though, less happy sleepless nights followed.

• Eintracht Frankfurt's "Eagles" are still flying high thanks to two goals from Alexander Meier against Freiburg. "This guy doesn't even know how good he is," said the manager, Armin Veh, after his side's 2-1 win.

• Nürnberg, however, haven't been able to reproduce the promising results of earlier rounds: you know you're playing badly when Stuttgart beat you on your own patch. The Brazilian defender Marcos António, in particular, had an afternoon to forget. Or, to be more precise, 16 minutes. After a disastrous early doors backpass that let Vedad Ibisevic score in the opening seconds, some more mistakes and persistent jeering from the stands, Dieter Hecking substituted the 29-year-old a third of the way through the opening half. As Bundesliga debuts go, it wasn't a classic.

• "We played our best game this season," said Felix Magath. Maybe so. But the result at home to Mainz 05 was yet another loss: the 2-0 defeat at home had Wolfsburg sliding to 16th in the table and some fans calling for the manager's head. "Points-wise, it's not enough," Magath conceded. He baffingly still enjoys the backing of owners Volkswagen after countless shopping sprees that would have seemed too exuberant to remain remotely credible by the writers of "Clueless".

• The Bayern sporting director, Matthias Sammer, was in a foul mood in Bremen. "A good start means nothing," he sneered, "we have to be careful that our shoulders don't drop because everyone's patting them so much." An acute case of a mixed metaphors, possibly. And a page out of Uli Hoeness's "anti-cyclical" PR handbook? Definitely. Sammer felt that a warning index finger should be raised despite another win, Bayern's sixth out of six in the league. To be sure, the visitors hadn't exactly played Werder off the park in the Weserstadion but late goals from Luiz Gustavo and Mario Mandzukic left little to complain about. Unless you are a professional alarmist like Sammer, of course. No one does "worried concern" better. He, one must fear, actually thinks in these terms unlike Hoeness, who's only pretending most of the time.

• Hamburg scooped up another three points with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Hannover 96. René Adler was absolutely sensational in goal but, in fairness, the whole team have shown marked signs of improvement. "We are thankful that the club hadn't been founded two weeks earlier," joked the chairman, Carl Jarchow, since the upswing came just in time for Saturday night's 125th anniversary party. However: any club who thinks it's a good idea to invite Scooter (warning: listening will destroy brain cells) to serenade its guests can't be completely out of the woods yet.

Results: Düsseldorf 2-2 Schalke, Nürnberg 0-2 Stuttgart, Hoffenheim 0-0 Augsburg, Hamburg 1-0 Hannover, Leverkusen 2-0 Fürth, Bremen 0-2 Bayern, Dortmund 5-0 Gladbach, Frankfurt 2-1 Freiburg, Wolfsburg 0-2 Mainz