From left to right: Schalke’s Matthias Schober, Jermaine Jones, Fabian Ernst and Gustavo Varela arrive at the training session of Schalke 04.

Whether Schalke will wreck their competition and leave a scene of destruction in their path remains to be seen. They are definitely showing some intent. Last year’s hard earned Champions League money has done wonders to Schalke’s economic muscle. Apart from signing the latest in Dutch coaching (Fred Rutten) they also bought Jefferson Farfan for €10m from Eindhoven and Orlando Engelaar from FC Twente Enschede for somewhere around €6-8m. More big money moves could be on their way, should Schalke make sure of Champions League qualification.

BTW: Our Schalke blogger Mike is looking for someone who could help him inject some life into the Schalke Offside - his 360 has taken over.

(Photo by Patrik Stollarz/Bongarts/Getty Images)

After going through the grind of tournament blogging over at the Germany blog, I’m also more than happy to return to the cosy and relaxed world of club football - which also happens to be head and shoulders above nationality based football, when it comes to silly clichés and stereotypes. You can expect insanely good-humoured blog posts as a direct result from that.

• The Bundesliga Offside’s new theme tune. And for those who know a bit of German, it’s also a fun little quiz about Lukas Podolski and Luca Toni. If you don’t speak German, you might still try clicking around randomly to see a bit of Luca/Lukas in action. (FAZ)
• Fun with names: Lehmann knows the Veh to Stuttgart. (AFP)
• Trouble with names: football versus soccer. (Deutsche Welle)
• Midfield ace and enfant terrible Stefan Effenberg talks about the Champions League struggles of the Bundesliga clubs. (uefa.com)
• After missing out on the old Zidane, the Bundesliga could be home to the new Zidane. (Guardian sportblog)
• Deutsche Welle added interviews with Nuremberg’s Angelos Charisteas, Dortmund’s Mladen Petric and Bayern’s Marcell Jansen to their “Heroes of the European Championships” dossier. (Deutsche Welle)
• Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger profiles the silent enigma known as Miro Klose. (ESPN Soccernet)

It was a good season for…

Money. The three biggest spenders this season - based on their transfer deficit - were Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg and second division side Hoffenheim. Bayern’s millions bought them a double, Wolfsburg’s millions bought them a UEFA Cup spot and their best ever Bundesliga finish and Hoffenheim’s millions bought them straight promotion to the Bundesliga.

“Unique” Goals. All credit goes to Stuttgart’s Mario Gomez and Dortmund’s Sebastian Kehl. They expanded the repertoire of body parts which players can use to score goals.

Schalke. This team didn’t receive a lot of love from this blog, but they couldn’t care less I guess. Schalke have reached the Champions League quarter final for the first time in their history. Schalke could secure back-to-back Champions League qualification for the first time in their history. Schalke massively improved their financial results with a record turnover of €150m. Schalke eventually got rid of the coach they never really liked in the first place. Only mean Dortmund fans will point out, that this year also marked Schalke’s 50th anniversary, since they last could call themselves German champions.

Job Safety. Just four coaches had to go during the regular season compared to ten dismissals last year. The count went up to six recently, as Dortmund’s Thomas Doll and Leverkusen’s Michael Skibbe got the axe after the season had ended. Anyway, maybe there’s a trend in there.

Height limited Players with unlimited Skills. There were three to be exact: Hamburg’s Rafael van der Vaart, Werder Bremen’s Diego and Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery all added a few new tricks and goals to their highlight reels. Too bad each of them had their little dips in form, so we hardly got all three working their magic during the same weekend.

Ivan Klasnic. Werder Bremen’s striker returned to professional football after receiving two kidney transplants. If that wasn’t amazing enough, he also set up three goals and scored seven goals himself in the 16 matches he played until the end of the season.

The Bundesliga Offside. Self-congratulatory, but it’s worth mentioning that the Bundesliga Offside has expanded like crazy throughout the season. All the teams getting blogged here qualified for Europe. That’s no coincidence, even if it looks like one.

It was a bad season for…

Title Holders. Bundesliga title holders Stuttgart crashed down to the Intertoto Cup spot, following a topsy-turvy season marked by injuries, heavy goalkeeper rotation and shambolic defending. On top of that, they crashed out of the Champions League as a distant fourth. Cup winners Nuremberg’s European record was much better in comparison, but their season ended in tears / the second division.

Title Races. There was some hope that there would be something like a title race, after Bayern and Bremen ended the first half of the season level on points. But after a few weeks into the second half of the season, one had to realise that there wasn’t even one suitable competitor, who could or even wanted to challenge Bayern’s dominance. That the Bavarians weren’t playing up to their potential makes it all the more frustrating. Maybe the previous season had spoiled us.

Circus Football. Fantasy football, or whatever you want to call it. Bayern Munich started out to offer all of that. They played in front of sell out crowds as a reward, even when they were playing some unknown team in the UEFA Cup in the middle of the week. But for some reason the Bavarians returned to their old ways of grinding out results, as if they were still playing with the likes of Jens Jeremies and Carsten Jancker in the starting line-up. They still played a couple of great matches, but the overall quality leaves you wanting some Klinsmann, even if he should turn out to be a flop. As for the other teams: Werder Bremen were once again free-scoring, but overall couldn’t emulate their performances from the previous season. In general, most teams’ performances were just too inconsistent - in sync with their title challenge - to consider them must-see teams.

Bremen’s medical Department. They had to cope with an overdose of injuries. They had to cope with players blaming their injuries on them. They had to cope with Ivan Klasnic blaming them, that they misdiagnosed his malfunctioning kidney. Klasnic has now taken them to court and Klasnic decided not to renew his contract with Bremen because of their team doctors.

Promising Youngsters. Or better, it was a bad season for those who wanted to see more of promising youngsters. The Bundesliga clubs have filled up their squads with some of the finest talents around, but most of them were stored away on benches or reserve teams most of the time. Hamburg’s 19 year old highly skilled defender Jerome Boateng was a notable exception, as was Schalke’s Ivan Rakitic.

OK, I’m aware that this list is far from complete, so I invite you to add your entries for the two categories in the comments section.

• Brian resurrected the Werder Bremen Offside, right in time to cover the Diego to … rumours. (Werder Offside)
• Speaking of Diego: he won’t spend his summer in Beijing. (Werder Offside)
• Torsten Frings has been voted the Bundesliga’s Player of the Month. (Werder Offside)
• Miroslav Klose and Luca Toni have a bet running. (Bayern Offside)
• It’s good news all around in Dortmund as Liverpool take care of Degen, and Dortmund take care of Doll. (Dortmund Offside)
• A village team will be among the attractions of the next Bundesliga season. (The Offside)
• A magic dwarf will be among the attractions of the next Bundesliga season. (Bundesliga Offside)

Given that these all aren’t final numbers, there’s still a chance that plenty of Bundesliga based players will be sent home following May 28th. So, in danger of losing the bragging rights, I rather post those numbers now, as did the official Bundesliga website. The other clear advantage is the possibility of bragging again with updated numbers, once the final squad lists are out.

The widespread presence of players could translate to a widespread presence of transfer rumours, which the Bundesliga Offside will happily chronicle during the tournament. Or whatever comes my way, like this viral with Franck Ribery and Luca Toni duking it out.
 

via: FANartisch

Marin is an attacking midfielder of lilliputian dimensions with excellent technical skills and a high amount of creativity. All of which he started to put on display on a weekly basis in the second Bundesliga. Yet, while it was generally fun to watch what he was doing and to guess what he might be doing next, his tricks earned him only a few goals in return. In the first half of the season Marin couldn’t find the back of the net and supplied just five assists. But there was more than enough on display to be optimistic, that it would click in due time. And it clicked. In the last 13 second Bundesliga matches Marin scored four goals and provided 8 assists - or in other words 12 scorer points in 13 matches.

Gladbach dominated the second Bundesliga and got promoted with relative ease and the magic dwarf Marin should be an excellent addition to the Bundesliga’s trio of magic mouse Diego, littler prankster Ribery and little angel van der Vaart. Although the latter might be poised to pose with a shirt of another club and talk about his grandpa soon again.

Marin also impressed on almost all of Germany’s youth national teams up to the U21, where he debuted last year. His nomination for Jogi Löw’s provisional Euro squad still came as a bit of a surprise. Not so much for Löw, who said he only needed to watch Marin play for 10 minutes to make his mind up. The following video gives you a good idea of what Marin has been doing all season. It’s only 3:55 min, so I suggest you watch it roughly 2.5 times to be on Jogi Löw’s level.