Bundesliga Matchday 8: The Tragedy of Errors

By: Jan | October 5th, 2009

Sascha Burchert Establishing something comparable to England’s Big Four remains a distant dream for last season’s top four in the Bundesliga. Wolfsburg are 7th after disappointingly drawing with Bochum. Munich are 8th after disappointingly drawing with Cologne. Stuttgart are 13th after disappointingly losing to Bremen. Hertha courageously defended the last place by disappointingly losing to Hamburg.

Defense. Werder Bremen’s coach Thomas Schaaf came up with the idea after slipping and bumping his head while standing on his toilet to hang a clock. The idea came to him in a vision he had after being knocked out. He drew some tactical formations on a piece of paper, performed some calculations and then presented the idea to his team. Now Werder Bremen have gone four Bundesliga matches without conceding a goal. Werder fans will still have to get used to winning games 2-0 and 1-0 though.

Edward A. Murphy, Jr. Murphy currently resides in Berlin’s Olympiastadion. His office hours are Friday through Sunday usually from 15.30h to 17.15h CET.

Lady Luck. Is a mermaid and spared Hamburg of yet another disappointing – 2 points from the last 11 games – visit to the capital as Hamburg beat Hertha 3-1, with Hertha scoring and setting up all four goals. The question is, whether she can consistently help Hamburg for the rest of the season, or whether Bruno Labbadia has to try and build some consistency into his team’s performances for a change.

Sascha Burchert. Hertha’s 19 year old back-up keeper can now claim two assists in a career total of two Bundesliga matches. Looks good on paper. Looks silly on video.

Consistency. Hamburg may want some, Bayern have some to spare. Despite investing 75 million Euros during the tranfer window and bringing in a new experienced coach, Bayern exactly emulated last season’s start to the season. Klinsmann racked up 12 points after 8 matches and so did Louis van Gaal. Luckily for van Gaal he didn’t build lounges, libraries and turntables into Bayern’s training centre, so he currently isn’t feeling the same heat as Klinsmann did back then. With Hamburg running out of strikers fast, Uli Hoeness pointed out, that Bruno Labbadia certainly wouldn’t mind having Bayern’s abundance of expensive strikers. I’m not sure Labbadia really feels this way at the moment.

5 Kick-off Times. The Bundesliga introduced five different kick-off times this season, to help pay-TV networks sell more subscriptions. Based on the games scheduled this past weekend, the league might want to rethink that strategy. Schalke vs Frankfurt on Friday night, Borussia vs Borussia on Saturday evening or Hertha vs Hamburg on Sunday afternoon are more likely to have cost subscribers. Here’s to a more exciting matchday 9.

Thomas Tuchel. The Mainz 05 rookie coach claimed yet another prestigious scalp by beating Hoffenheim in remarkably similar fashion to his victory over Bayern. Had anyone cared to ask me prior to the season, I would have said that I’m not entirely sure, which team will get relegated alongside Mainz. With a sixth place and 14 points after 8 matchdays, Mainz cannot afford to win any more matches.

Horst Heldt. VfB Stuttgart’s sporting director wants his coach Markus Babbel to drop out of highschool – or rather the German FA’s equivalent for coaches without coaching license – to focus on his sinking and quite expensive ship. This might send out the wrong message to the kids though.

The Grinch. Leverkusen brushed aside Nuremberg 4-0, top the table and don’t like Christmas?

Results: Schalke – Frankfurt (2-0), Hannover – Freiburg (5-2), Bayern – Cologne (0-0), Leverkusen – Nuremberg (4-0), Bochum – Wolfsburg (1-1), Mainz – Hoffenheim (2-1), Borussia M’gladbach – Borussia Dortmund (0-1), Stuttgart – Werder Bremen (0-2), Hertha Berlin – Hamburg (1-3)