Happy Birthday: The new, united Germany is 21 today. The official, state-sanctioned party – das Deutschlandfest – has been going strong since Saturday but it's been a high-brow and rather understated affair. The Iraqi young symphonic orchestra are playing, there's an ecumenical prayer service and the headline act are Budafok – not a Nepalese death metal band, sadly, but another classical orchestra from Hungary.

In other words, the festivities bear little relation to the kind of riotous celebrations one would usually associate with the reaching of that particular age. But this Germany doesn't do "rampant" or "unrestrained", not any more. It's far too grown-up and sensible.

If it was a real 21-year-old it would be an academically brilliant, incredibly hard-working and unbearably swottish economics student sporting a Harry Potter haircut, a white polyester shirt with three different colour ballpens in the breast pocket and a grey plastic briefcase. It would come to uni by bike to do its bit for the environment and look at the flashier, naughtier kids in class with a mixture of open contempt and secret envy; assured, still, that it would have the last laugh come exam time.

This deeply logical, emotionally repressed attitude to life has obviously informed the way football is consumed in Germany too. To be fair, a few hundred ultras have tried their level-best to introduce a measure of Latin exuberance and puerile stupidity to the proceedings in recent years. Manuel Neuer's blatant circumvention of a muted anti-Lederhosen edict (a few Bayern fan groups had earnestly debated whether the former Schalke keeper should be prohibited from wearing said garment as part of a "code of conduct" they drew up for the player) on Sunday, however, proves that perspective once again trumps madness at the moment.

There's no collective hysteria surrounding the national team, and Jürgen Klopp, last-season's kicking and screaming high-priest of Spassfussball (fun football), appears a chastened man in the light of Borussia Dortmund's difficult start to the season. The TV talk shop Sky90, an unerring barometer of the country's emotional state if there ever was one, summed up the prevalent mood perfectly when Carlo Wild, the man from Kicker, declared that there were "more important things in the world, for example in Africa" than a reported tiff between Arjen Robben and Jupp Heynckes.

All of this goes a long way to expaining why Huub Stevens' Bundesliga comeback with Schalke at Hamburg passed off with such little fuss. The 57-year-old was booed and jeered by the home crowd at the beginning. Here was a man who had brazenly negotiated with both sides and effectively chosen the Royal Blues over the relegation-threatened Red Trousers, even if Hamburg professed to pulling out of the talks first. There are also more lovable characters than the prickly Dutchman, who made his name peddling dour, clean-sheet football.

But there was no real venom in the HSV fans' missives, let alone an inclination to explore new depths of depravity with chants about terrorist attacks or paedophilia. Hands were shaken all round. The fact that this wasn't a derby can only partially explain the lack of hatred. Hamburg simply have too much on their plate to worry about former coaches (Stevens was there in 2007-2008) who refuse to entertain a second-coming.

The team even played fairly well. Coached by the caretaker manager Rodolfo Cardoso, HSV were aggressive and incisive on the wings, even if the strikers Mladen Petric and Paolo Guerrero had few genuine opportunities. Schalke, on the other hand, scored with their first useful attack: Klaas-Jan Huntelaar placed an excellent header beyond Jaroslav Drobny.

The home side did not do their usual impression of an undercooked soufflé, though: for once, they stood firm and fought back. Petric's equaliser on 37 minutes was well deserved.

At half-time, Stevens's made full use of his tactical acumen and experience. "He said that we had played well in the beginning and should do that again", revealed Huntelaar. And they did: the Dutchman steered a Christian Fuchs cross past the HSV keeper with the outside of his boot to decide the entertaining match with a great goal 20 minutes from time. The win was Stevens's second in three days – Schalke had beaten Maccabi Haifa 3-1 in the Europa League – and lifted the club to fourth in the table. Stevens didn't want anyone getting carried away, however. "We had a striker who scored twice whereas their striker only scored once", he said, adding that an HSV team who played this well would surely escape trouble before too long.

Unfortunately, that is not quite the case: the northerners will prop up the table for another two weeks at least. The sporting director, Frank Arnesen, promised to present a new manager "today or tomorrow", or at least until Bundesliga hostilities resume at Freiburg on 16 October. Cardoso lacks the coaching badges to carry on any longer and the DFL is reportedly unwilling to allow for exceptional dispensation.

"We don't have time until Christmas," warned Arnesen, who is under severe pressure to get this one right. The Dane insisted that "a licensed coach" would be on the bench promptly, but his wording kept open the possibility of installing yet another caretaker until he and the board agree on a candidate.

The former striker Sergej Barbarez, never one to miss a trick, linked himself profusely with the job on Sunday. "I don't want to send out an application video but I want to say that I'm close to the club and have many emotions for it," the Bosnian told Sky, revealing that he had had "a small talk" with Arnesen. But the Bundesliga's longest-standing member is unlikely to go down the novice route again at this juncture.

The club know full well that even the strongest sense of perspective among the fans will count for nothing if this existential crisis continues into the winter. It would undoubtedly get very ugly, very quickly.

German football is probably not too dissimilar from the country in that respect: that fabled level-headedness is mostly a function of comfort. Once (economic) status is threatened, naked fear and all sorts of dark emotions would surely come to the fore.

"Prinz Poldi has just been crowned king there", Markus Babbel had warned before the match against Köln, with a mixture of seriousness and irony. But it was his Hertha BSC side who ruled in the Olympiastadion: Änis Ben-Hatira, who used to work there as a ball boy in his youth, shot down Stale Solbakken's counterattacking tactics with two quick goals. The Brazilian striker Raffael made it three before the break with a fine volley, the visitors never recovered. "We wanted a result but the first half was beyond the pale", said the Köln goalkeeper Michael Rensing.

Talking points

• After a nightmare in Marseille, where Dortmund created dozens of chances but conceded three mostly avoidable goals, the champions took out their frustrations on poor Augsburg, a team that will surely be put back into their second division "Kiste" (box).

The much-criticised Robert Lewandowski scored a hat-trick and Mario Götze provided the fourth in a match that eased the Black and Yellow pain somewhat. "It was good today and did us good", said the Dortmund manager, Klopp, who was most pleased about his No1 striker Lucas Barrios's return to fitness.

• Neuer's run of clean-shhets continued in the Rhein-Neckar-Stadion but Bayern Munich didn't quite replicate the goalkeeper's form: Hoffenheim fought out a 0-0 draw that flattered the tired-looking Bavarians. "I'm a bit upset my team didn't win", said the Hoffenheim manager, Holger Stanislawski. Heynckes and his men were uncharacteristically happy with the draw ("we can't be so arrogant to think that we'll win every single game", said the Bayern president, Uli Höness) but were less pleased to debate the latest-installment of Robben's low-level displeasure. The Dutchman came on in the second half, looked as knackered as the rest of his team-mates and wandered off without talking to the media yet again. All we need now for another full-blown controversy is another injury while he's on duty with the national team.

• The Leverkusen striker Eren Derdiyok may well have scored the goal of the season in the 3-1 over Wolfsburg but Michael Ballack was the best man on the pitch in his 100th Bundesliga game for Bayer. There was also a public show of solidarity by the team for benched midfielder Renato Augusto who'd been accused of playing "alibi football" by the Leverkusen CEO, Wolfgang Holzhäuser, and a goal for striker Stefan Kiessling. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise that 27-year-old scored. Kiessling revealed that officials from the national anti-doping agency woke him up at 6.15am the other day – with grave consequences. "It was a very stiff situation", he said, "these guys are with you from the moment you open your trousers until you wash your hands. Luckily for me, it was over quickly." The relief was probable mutual.

Results Kaiserslautern 0-2 Stuttgart, Dortmund 4-0 Augsburg, Leverkusen 3-1 Wolfsburg, Nürnberg 3-3 Mainz , Freiburg 1-0 Gladbach, Hertha 3-0 Köln, Hoffenheim 0-0 Bayern, Hannover 3-2 Bremen, Hamburg 1-2 Schalke.

• Latest Bundesliga standings