DFB-Pokal Round of 16

SC Freiburg – FSV Mainz 05
VfB Stuttgart – Bayern Munich
Bayer Leverkusen – Energie Cottbus
Hamburger SV – 1860 Munich
Karlsruher SC – SV Wehen Wiesbaden
VfL Wolfsburg – Hansa Rostock
Carl Zeiss Jena - FC Schalke 04
Borussia Dortmund – Werder Bremen

Matches will be played on January 27th/28th 2009. We can look forward to a promising looking rematch of last year’s round of 16 clash between Dortmund and Bremen, while Stuttgart vs Bayern is obviously the one to watch in this round. Carl Zeiss Jena are the lone remaining third division (and lower) side and will take on Schalke.

UEFA Cup Group Stage

Group A: Schalke 04 (GER), Paris Saint Germain (FRA), Mancherster City (ABU DHABI), Racing Santander (ESP), FC Twente (NED)

23.10.08 Schalke – Paris Saint Germain
06.11.08 Racing Santander – Schalke
27.11.08 Schalke 04 – Manchester City
03.12.08 FC Twente – Schalke
17.12.08 -

An attractive and tough group for Schalke. Fred Rutten gets to play his former club FC Twente featuring Steve van Klaren. The home game against Man City looks promising.

Group B: SL Benfica (POR), Olympiacos (GRE), Galatasaray (TUR), Hertha Berlin (GER), Metalist Kharkiv (UKR)

23.10.08 Hertha – Benfica
06.11.08 Metalist – Hertha
27.11.08 -
03.12.08 Hertha – Galatasaray
17.12.08 Olympiacos – Hertha

Hertha’s manager Dieter Hoeness will probably have some € signs in his eyes at the moment. Hertha got an attractive group with home games against Benfica and Galatasaray. Lucien Favre might be worried that the game against Galatasaray could turn into a hostile away match, with a large Turkish community living in Berlin probably ready to send a delegation over to the Olympiastadion. The away matches look tricky as well.

Group C: Sevilla FC (ESP), VfB Stuttgart (GER), UC Sampdoria (ITA), FK Partizan (SRB), Standard de Liège (BEL)

23.10.08 Sevilla – Stuttgart
06.11.08 Stuttgart – Partizan
27.11.08 Sampdoria – Stuttgart
03.12.08 -
17.12.08 Stuttgart – Standard de Liege

A though group for Stuttgart and to make matters worse, they aren’t even getting any of the revenue guaranteeing home games against Sevilla and/or Sampdoria. Stuttgart will probably just hope to get out of the group.

Group E: AC Milan (ITA), SC Heerenveen (NED), SC Braga (POR), Portsmouth FC (ENG), VfL Wolfsburg (GER)

23.10.08 -
06.11.08 Wolfsburg – Heerenveen
27.11.08 Braga – Wolfsburg
03.12.08 Wolfsburg – Portsmouth
17.12.08 AC Milan – Wolfsburg

Wolfsburg play against AC Milan – just not at home, which is probably a bit of a disappointment for Wolfsburg’s fans.

Group F: Hamburg (GER), Ajax Amsterdam (NED), Slavia Praha (CZE), Aston Villa (ENG), MŠK Žilina (SVK)

23.10.08: MŠK Žilina – Hamburg
06.11.08: -
27.11.08: Hamburg – Ajax Amsterdam
04.12.08: Slavia Praha – HSV
17.12.08: Hamburg – Aston Villa

Hamburg fans can look forward to attractive home games against Ajax and Aston Villa, while planning a short holiday in the beautiful city of Prague. David Jarolim can look forward to a small family reunion, as Slavia is managed by his father and a cousin of him is in the squad.

2. Jena will take a couple of nice cup memories to the third division.
And some money, unless they need it to pay off debts or anything. This team is 8 points away from safety in the second Bundesliga and yet is looking forward to their first ever DFB-Pokal semi-final. The last time they performed better was back in communist East Germany in 1988, when they reached the FDGB cup final.

3. It has been a while for Borussia Dortmund.
Dortmund’s history has been slightly less bleak than Jena’s. Their latest heroic achievement in the DFB-Pokal is only 19 years old, when they won the DFB-Pokal in capitalist West Germany in 1989. Surprisingly for a team like Dortmund, that was the last time they reached the DFB-Pokal semi-final. At least this little blemish has been eradicated with a confident 3-1 victory over second Bundesliga billionaires Hoffenheim on Tuesday.

4. Wolfsburg continue to annoy/impress.
Depending on whether you live in Wolfsburg or not. A dive by Grafite gifted Wolfsburg a penalty and a 1-0 lead over Hamburg. Hamburg otherwise dominated and controlled the game and should have equalised on several occasions already, before a beauty by Rafael van der Vaart levelled the score late in the game. During extra time, the game was then balanced and Hamburg’s packed match schedule started to show, as Huub Stevens’ side looked decidedly more exhausted. It nonetheless took a great individual effort by Wolfsburg’s Marcelinho to keep this match from going into a penalty shootout. This is all Manuel Neuer’s fault really, who couldn’t catch a corner kick in the 90th minute, which would have sent Wolfsburg crashing out last round already. Well…

5. Ribery has an ugly side to him as well.
Franck Ribery has been such an all around positive addition to the Bundesliga so far, that the little incident from the derby against city rivals 1860 probably sticks out even more. The match had gone to extra time, when a push by 1860 defender Benjamin Schwarz caused Ribery to spend the next few minutes rolling around on the pitch, seemingly incredibly seriously injured. Schwarz got his second booking and was sent off, while Ribery probably used the short break to save energy for the game winning, yet wrongly awarded, penalty in the 120th minute. In defence of Bayern it needs to be pointed out, that they had a close penalty call go against them in the 90th minute, which probably evens things out.

1. You don’t need Jens Lehmann for Penalty Heroics
Borussia Dortmund famously didn’t sign Jens Lehmann in the winter transfer window. The fact that they quite publicly tried to do it though, can’t have gone too well with both, Roman Weidenfeller (out injured for three months) and his back up Marc Ziegler. Especially because Dortmund have an excellent record with Marc Ziegler in goal this season, and he was instrumental in keeping it that way on Tuesday. In an entertaining encounter, Dortmund were leading 2-0 against Bremen, when two late penalties offered Bremen a road back into the match. Diego slotted the first one home, with Ziegler coming quite close. He then went on to save Diego’s second penalty to send Dortmund into their first DFB Pokal quarter final since the glory days of the nineties. Watch out for Marc Ziegler famously not staying in Dortmund during the summer transfer window.

2. You only need 324 Seconds to win a Match from 2-0 down
It was the first competitive match for Aachen’s new coach Jürgen Seeberger, and for 83 minutes it looked like he could celebrate it with a DFB Pokal quarter final ticket. 324 seconds later 1860 Munich had rewritten the score line from 2-0 to 2-3 to snatch that ticket instead. There’s hope for a Munich derby in the cup and 1860 Munich will want to take this psychological boost into their second Bundesliga campaign, where they are among a group of contenders for promotion.

3. You only need 13 Minutes to score a Hattrick
The catch: your first name has to read Mario and your last name should be Gomez. Stuttgart were playing against Werder Bremen’s third division side and everything looked set for a classic cup fight, as Bremen dominated the opening stages of the match. Between the 29th and 42nd minute though Mario Gomez single-handedly sent Stuttgart to the next round. The fans in the Weserstadion nonetheless got their cup fight, because a second half comeback of Bremen meant the final score was just a close 3-2 in Stuttgart’s favour. Check out the match highlights below and pay close attention to Mario Gomez’ third goal and then discuss the merits of active and passive offside positions in the comments section.

4. You have to defend a lead for the full 90 Minutes
Stating the obvious, but what else can you say when Schalke continuously give up their leads? They draw half of their matches and take the lead in almost all of them. They were leading 1-0 against Wolfsburg up until the 90th minute and the very last corner kick of the match. Yet another blunder by Manuel Neuer though gifted Wolfsburg the equaliser. The match was sent to extra-time or 30 minutes of safety first football. Wolfsburg then won the following penalty shootout. This isn’t Manuel Neuer’s season and if he continues his shaky performances it won’t be Schalke’s season either.

5. Hamburg are not a Team for Cup Romantics
Unless you are a Hamburg supporter hoping for the first title in 21 years of course. But Hamburg’s third and second division opposition so far failed to get anywhere near an upset. Huub Stevens has injected a no-nonsense approach into his team, which turned Rot-Weiss Essen’s game of the year into a straight 3-0 victory for Hamburg.

To spice it up, there’s the cult club FC St. Pauli, who celebrate their return to professional football, and the billionaire backed village people of Hoffenheim, who invested a record €18m into their squad.

All of this also had an impact on the league’s average attendance figures so far. They don’t challenge the overall Ligue 1 and Serie A numbers, but hold up pretty well nonetheless. Just last weekend, 60.000 came to Munich to watch the derby against Fürth, and the classic between Mönchengladbach and Cologne was seen by 54.000.

2. Bundesliga Top Four
1. 1860 Munich 44.940
2. FC Cologne 41.780
3. Bor. Mönchengladbach 40.911
4. FC Kaiserslautern 25.606
League Average: 18453

Ligue 1 Top Four
1. Olympique Marseille 53.705
2. Paris St. Germain 36.204
3. Olympique Lyon 36.058
4. RC Lens 34.979
League Average: 21.574

Serie A Top Four
1 AC Milan 51.353
2 AS Roma 46.185
3 Inter 43.267
4 Fiorentina 32.821
League Average: 22.947

Numbers according to www.weltfussball.de