It took 18 year old Lewis Holtby just one season to catch up on everything you would expect from a promising young talent and then he improved on it.

He was promoted from Alemannia Aachen’s youth straight to the senior side, skipping the reserves, and quickly became a first team starter. The DFB took note and invited him to play for Germany’s U18 and then U19. He racked up 10 assists and 8 goals in 31 second Bundesliga games to become Aachen’s most valuable creative midfielder and one of the hottest young talents in Germany.

Half the Bundesliga were after him and the other half probably didn’t dare trying given the heavy competition. Lewis Holtby eventually chose Schalke and Schalke eventually sealed a deal worth €2.5m + bonuses.

If you have enough time on your hand you can check the following video, which comprehensively summarizes his season at Alemannia Aachen.

a = a chipped ball over an onrushing goalkeeper.

We’ll take Hannover’s second / Jan Schlaudraff’s first goal against Borussia Mönchengladbach from this weekend (5-1).
 

 
b = a great little run from left to right, dribbling past the entire back line of the opponent’s team in the process.

Hannover’s fourth / Jan Schlaudraff’s second goal against Borussia Mönchengladbach from this weekend perfectly fits the requirements.

a + b = c

c = Jan Schlaudraff’s goal for Alemannia Aachen vs Werder Bremen, which was voted goal of the month for November 2006.
 

 
Anyone know what happened between November 2006 and September 2008?

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.

76% of the German population(*) are interested in football which translates to 49,21 million people. When asked about the clubs they sympathise with, they gave the following answer (multiple answers were permitted):

Sympathy Table

1. Bremen 27,51 Million
2. Schalke 22,26 Million
3. Bayern Munich 21,92 Million
4. Hamburg 18,43 Million
5. Dortmund 17,21 Million
6. Stuttgart 17,08 Million
7. Nuremberg 13,37 Million
8. Mainz 12,89 Million
9. Leverkusen 12,19 Million
10. Gladbach 12,15 Million
11. Berlin 11,65 Million
12. Bochum 10,96 Million
13. Frankfurt 10,58 Million
14. Hannover 9,08 Million
15. Cottbus 7,77 Million
16. Aachen 7,64 Million
17. Wolfsburg 6,85 Million
18. Bielefeld 6,10 Million

First of all I want to pat myself on the back for my successful albeit a bit lucky display of football culture expertise. Look who is ranked 17th and 18th here and read what I wrote here. Anyway, congratulations Werder Bremen, you might have only made it to the third place last season but won the Champion of the Hearts award, that was originally invented for Schalke fans who needed comfort after yet another unsuccessful Bundesliga title race. And Bremen has actually tripled the number of their sympathisers over the last five years. Out of fairness I should mention that Sportfive is marketing Werder Bremen and a couple of other Bundesliga clubs. I should probably also point out that they conducted the study over a period of 18 days at two points in time last year. CATI: 8th to 26th of May 2006. Face to Face: 20th of November to 8th of December 2006. So the study doesn’t reflect how the season played out in the end. Probably wouldn’t dramatically change the results except for let’s say Stuttgart on position 6. But results that look ridiculously outdated by now are the following:

Best player: 1. Miroslav Klose 33%
Best coach: 1. Felix Magath, 2. Thomas Schaaf, 3. Jürgen Klopp, 4. Hans Meyer, 5. Klaus Augenthaler

No Mirko Slomka, no Armin Veh, Felix Magath on top and what is Klaus Augenthaler doing there? Things they are a-changin’. But great to see that Hans Meyer (Nuremberg) is already on the list.

Something that is probably less susceptible to day to day moods and business is the question which club people support.

1. Bayern Munich 10,54 Million
2. Bremen 5,68 Million
3. Schalke 04 4,31 Million
4. Dortmund 3,15 Million
5. Hamburg 2,68 Million

8,19 million Germans are fans of a foreign club instead, while 13,70 million are undecided. The top 5 foreign clubs:

1. FC Barcelona 2,26 Million
2. FC Chelsea 1,49 Million
3. Real Madrid 1,36 Million
4. Manchester United 1,28 Million
5. Liverpool 1,12 Million

Very clear victory for Bayern Munich here. Although I have to say that as a kid/teenager I always hated those guys in my class that were Bayern Munich supporters. I respected those who chose a local club or if it had to be Munich could at least prove that they are from Bavaria or something like that. But the majority were really just superficial wannabe fans who pick the most successful club because they can’t stand losing. And yes I was jealous and I was disappointed by my own in retrospect painful choice to support Cologne.

(*) that’s not the official 82 million people population number you might find in a Wikipedia article, but 65 million people who are at least 14 years old.

(Sources: 1 2 3)

It’s all in the clip.

Jan Schlaudraff has been one of the shooting stars of the last season, sort of. Judging by his performance during the first half of the season this assertion definitely holds true. He played some good football for Alemannia Aachen, scored some beautiful goals and Joachim Löw decided to invite him to the national team. Here is one of his goals that illustrates what all the hype was about.

But then Bayern Munich’s general manager Uli Hoeness entered the stage during the winter break to disturb the harmony. He made Schlaudraff an offer he couldn’t refuse to make sure that this player would be wearing a Munich jersey next season. The second half of the season then saw a different Jan Schlaudraff. The matches often passed by him without a lot of people noticing that he was actually on the field. He got accused that he no longer took his job and the relegation battle with Aachen serious enough and when he made headlines it was more about late night car crashes or his suspension for the rest of the season.