vs Bundesliga Report 2007/2008: The above numbers add up to a combined revenue of €1527,6m, while the official revenue reported by the Bundesliga is €1566,931m. This might have to do with Bayern Munich. Bayern Munich were co-owners of the Allianz Arena but recently bought the shares held by 1860 Munich. In turn Bayern released two revenue figures: the one quoted above and one + Allianz Arena which is roundabout €40m higher. In that case the revenues of the 17 other clubs are more or less correct. The Bundesliga also reported that 15 of 18 clubs turned a profit as compared to 18 of 18 in the previous season. So three clubs from the above list must have had a negative result.

vs Deloitte Football Money League Deloitte further “correct” their numbers by excluding none football related income as well as one offs like transfer fees.

Warning: Revenue figures of football clubs are like possession stats after a football match. A team dominating possession doesn’t necessarily win the game and isn’t necessarily the better team. After all, Manchester City were ranked 20th in Deloitte’s money league but are the richest club in the world…

The 2. Bundesliga revenues of the three clubs promoted to the Bundesliga: Borussia Mönchengladbach (Turnover €68,7m, Profit €6,8m), FC Cologne (€42,6m, Loss €2,27m), TSG Hoffenheim (Turnover €24m, Loss €5,2m)

Bonus
Turnover 1. Bundesliga 2007/2008: €1566,931m (€1456,783m in 2006/2007, +7,3%)
Turnover 2. Bundesliga 2007/2008: €367,508m (€291,032m in 2006/2007, +23,3%)
Turnover Bundesliga 2007/2008: €1934,439m (€1747,815m in 2006/2007, +10,7%)

Combined debt: €469,453m (€510,323m in 2006/2007)
Wages to Turnover Ratio: 40%

So, now is the time on the Bundesliga Offside vhen ve dance!
 

 
In order of appearance the alternative kits for: ???, Schalke 04, Duisburg, Hamburg, VfB Stuttgart and Fortuna Düsseldorf. Günther Netzer caps this clip off by saying, that he’s also of the opinion that there should be a bit more colour in the stadiums and that this would be a service to the fans.

P.S.: I couldn’t resist doing some research. The host calls the guy responsible for the colourful spectacle Herr von Garnier. Google and Wikipedia revealed to me that his full name is Friedrich-Ernst von Garnier, (graphic) artist, industrial designer, author and, drumroll, a colour philosopher. In 1974 adidas hired von Garnier to modernise the jerseys of the Bundesliga. The result of this work is shown in this video. Nothing has really come from this afterwards, except for the dance number, which adidas seems to be quite fond of.

kudos: Abby – Hertha Offside

Duisburg will be missed for the great goals they scored. Rostock will be missed by somebody somewhere as well – to be fair Rostock has a big fan base in eastern Germany. And the two deserve credit for sticking to their coaches for a change and admitting that the squads simply lacked the individual quality needed to stay in the Bundesliga.

2. A comedy own-goal keeps Nuremberg alive.
This one has already been covered on our main page.

3. The Bundesliga is the league with the fewest penalties.
Your average Bundesliga referee is giving 0,19 penalties per game according to bundesliga.de. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, especially when you are a Nuremberg supporter. On the other hand, Babak Rafati, who refereed Nuremberg’s match against Hertha, didn’t even manage 0,19 penalties. Out of three clear penalties – two for Nuremberg and one for Hertha – he gave exactly zero.

4. Schalke play like Mirko Slomka’s Schalke minus Mirko Slomka.
Once Kevin Kuranyi’s euphoria of no longer having to keep up with Mirko Slomka was gone, Schalke returned to their old ways, which are admittedly quite successful but lacking in the Joga Bonito department. A 1-0 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt was enough to keep Werder Bremen within reach, who themselves demolished Hanover 6-1.

5. More records tumble.
When Aaron Hunt made it 6-0 for Bremen in the 87th minute of the aforementioned match, he became Bremen’s 20th goalscorer of the season, breaking the previous Bundesliga record set by Bremen two weeks ago. Stuttgart’s Fernando Meira meanwhile saw his third red card of the season to bring his Bundesliga career total up to six. A new VfB Stuttgart record. He’ll need three more red cards to break the Bundesliga record, currently held by Jens Nowotny with 5 straight and 3 yellow-red cards. Next week Bayern could break an age old defensive record held by Werder Bremen (no kidding!), who only conceded 22 goals in one season sometime back in the eighties. Bayern currently conceded only 20 goals, and Hertha will probably be too busy with their Fair Play to score any goals.

6. Tim Wiese doesn’t take penalties, he saves them.
Tim Wiese could have made it 21 different goalscorers for Werder Bremen. Bremen were awarded a penalty in the 80th minute and the fans in the Weserstadion started to chant Tim Wiese’s name. He got on his way but was ordered back by an angry Thomas Schaaf. Instead he once again saved one, when Huszti failed to convert a last minute spot kick awarded to Hanover. Huszti headed home the rebound so Hanover at least got their consolation goal.

7. Proof that Hamburg don’t play up to their potential.
And for that we only have to take a quick look at some of the silly season rumours floating around. Barcelona are now supposedly interested in Rafael van der Vaart, an assortment of Premier League clubs are offering between €8m to €10m for Ivica Olic and Paolo Guerrero respectively and The Voyeur could put close to €20m on the table, to make Vincent Kompany trade his Emirates sponsored jersey for an Emirates sponsored stadium. One Vincent Kompany could buy you a complete Energie Cottbus squad, who beat Hamburg 2-0 and secured another season of top flight football. Congratulations.

8. Wolfsburg’s striker Grafite has completed the unholy trinity of bad sportsmanship.
This guy is truly one to keep an eye on for future “Most Hated Player in the Bundesliga” polls. He blatantly dived and won Wolfsburg a penalty when they kicked Hamburg out of the DFB-Pokal. Then he angrily stamped on Joris Mathijsen’s hand and got himself a red card, when the two sides met again in the Bundesliga. On Saturday he “showed an oscar-worthy performance of the dying swan” (as in a movie adaption of the ballet dance The Dying Swan I suppose), when he faked an injury after Meira had hit his arm.

9. Keep your goalkeeper, save the world.
Once I’m done writing the pilot for my Heroes rip-off series, that’ll be the line to sell it to TV stations. And here are some key plot points: Timo Hildebrand left Stuttgart to realise his childhood dream and win the Copa del Rey with Valencia. Raphael Schäfer, who won the DFB-Pokal with Nuremberg, came in as his replacement. Valencia crash-landed in La Liga switching back and forth between Hildebrand and Canizares in the process. Nuremberg switch back and forth between their keepers and crash-land in the relegation zone. Stuttgart nervously switch back and forth between Schäfer and some 19 year old talent, and could lose out on Europe next season in the process.

10. Karlsruhe stroll down the table.
Karlsruhe’s coach Ede Becker didn’t announce that he’ll move to Eindhoven nor does the team suffer from a nasty injury crisis. But a 1-3 home defeat against Bochum sees Karlsruhe slowly trotting down into the relegation zone. Probably so that their fans can get used to it for next season. So much for what could have been the positive surprise team of the season. This award will probably go to Energie Cottbus again.

1. Bremen and Schalke win Champions League race.
Both Hamburg and Stuttgart bagged impressive victories during the weekend, keeping the slim hope that they could still beat either Bremen or Schalke to their Champions League spot alive. Hamburg were hosting Bremen on Wednesday, and a derby victory would have reduced Bremen’s lead to just three points with two matches to go. Something which would have been to Stuttgart’s liking as well, who could have closed in on Bremen with a victory over Dortmund. Schalke had to visit Bochum to play out a small Revierderby. Bochum had only lost one game at home this season, so there was hope Schalke could drop points here as well.

That’s the theory. The reality produced a rare Borussia Dortmund victory (3-2). Alexander Frei bagged a brace, which should come as good news to all the Switzerland fans ahead of the Euros. Mario Gomez bagged a brace as well, which would come as good news to Germany fans, if we weren’t spoiled and used to his heroics by now. Hamburg then lost 1-0 against Bremen in a dirty epic (minus the epic), which produced eight yellow and two red cards. With five of the yellow and all red cards going to Bremen. Meanwhile Schalke confidently beat Bochum 3-0 effectively ending both Hamburg’s and Stuttgart’s Champions League hopes.

That means Bayern were the only team who could break into the Champions League places; at the expense of Stuttgart. Kudos to the Bavarians for keeping the league open and unpredictable.

2. Mario Gomez sneaks up on Luca Toni.
Gomez scored three goals in the last two matches to take his goal tally to 18. That’s still three goals short of Luca Toni. Though, when we can spend a whole season pretending there’s a title race going on, we can also pretend Mario Gomez has a chance for the golden boot also known as Torjägerkanone in Germany.

3. Tim Wiese sneaks up on Ivica Olic.
Just when Tim Wiese decides to sneak up on somebody it looks like this.

4. Werder Bremen are on the verge of becoming a big club.
A truly big club should be loved and loathed in equal proportions. Werder Bremen have so far received way too much love for their clever scouting and attractive attacking football to be considered a big club. But this season has seen some baby-steps in the right direction. There have been some campaigns to denounce Diego as a diver – even though they came from a club whose Italian hitman goes down suspiciously easy as well – and the team gets away with some atrocious fouls, followed by atrocious comments. That’s a start.

5. Schalke win the Ruhr Valley Championship.
Or Grand Slam. Schalke haven’t been German champions for 50 years, and Dortmund are already planing festivities to commemorate the event. But at least they are the undisputed kings of the Ruhr Valley this season, by beating Dortmund, Duisburg and Bochum away and at home.

6. Wolfsburg would play Champions League and Hertha would compete in the Intertoto Cup.
In a virtual second half of the season table Wolfsburg sit in third position and Hertha in sixth. Maybe this foreshadows some of the things to come next season or it’s just a statistical gimmick. But both are the in-form teams of the moment. Hertha’s two victories against Karlsruhe and Leverkusen won’t get them anywhere though. Yet, Wolfsburg’s draw with Bayern and win over Frankfurt sees them level on points with Leverkusen. Wolfsburg will host Stuttgart tomorrow in a UEFA Cup six-pointer. Hertha could end Nuremberg’s Bundesliga days with a victory at home.

7. Some new developments in the relegation snail race.
No club has officially been relegated yet, but Hansa Rostock and Duisburg have emerged as the hot favourites. Rostock have lost their games against Hamburg and Hanover and now need to overcome a five point deficit in two games. Duisburg bagged a dramatic last minute victory over Leverkusen on Sunday, but then lost a relegation six-pointer against Nuremberg on Wednesday. They are only three points away from safety, but will face Bayern Munich tomorrow. Nuremberg sits on the heels of Bielefeld (1 point) and Cottbus (2 points) but will have to face in-form Hertha away and Schalke at home. With a bit of luck the whole relegation race will go down the wire, to ensure lots of drama for the final matchday.

8. Leverkusen have their predictable annual Michael Skibbe crisis.
I don’t follow Leverkusen very closely, but at least once every year their fans turn against Michael Skibbe after a run of bad results. It hasn’t cost him his job in the past and I hope it won’t this time around either. His Leverkusen side played some attractive attacking football this season under Skibbe.

9. The Bundesliga has a goalkeeper problem.
And it’s not a luxury problem. Whether it’s Rapahel Schäfer at Stuttgart, Tim Wiese at Bremen, Marc Ziegler/Roman Weidenfeller at Dortmund, Manuel Neuer at Schalke or Michael Rensing at Bayern. They all played erratic, insecure and made some blunders, which cost or could have cost their teams a match. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. But since other people sometimes exaggerate the quality of German keepers, it’s worth grounding them for once.

10. Karlsruhe are relegation material.
Again referring to the second half of the season table, where Karlsruhe sit in 16th position. If you add to the small exodus of players at the end of the season, you could predict a very rough second season for the Bundesliga newbies.

2. Werder Bremen break a record.
And it comes with a complete lack of surprise, that it’s a goal scoring related record. Former Schalke youngster Mesut Özil scored his first (flukey) Bundesliga goal against Karlsruhe on Saturday. He was Bremen’s 19th player to score a goal this season. No other team in the history of the Bundesliga had 19 different goal scorers in one season. Yet, all this attacking versatility was once again coupled with defensive clumsiness and the match ended 3-3.

3. Kevin Kuranyi could break a record.
It’s his own Bundesliga goal scoring record. He never scored more than 15 goals a season. His early and winning goal against Hamburg, in the otherwise anti-climactic/anti-quality Champions League showdown, was his 15th of the season and now he has four more games to break his record. Or maybe it just means that Kuranyi won’t score any more goals this season.

4. Bremen and Schalke closed in on the Champions League.
Bremen’s draw with Karlsruhe and Schalke’s 1-0 victory over Hamburg were enough to open a six point lead over their three Champions League competitors. Bremen still have to travel to Hamburg and Leverkusen though.

5. Hamburg have collapsed.
Hamburg’s assessment center is still busy trying to find the perfect coach. Meanwhile, all the good coaches join other clubs or renew their contracts. Huub Stevens has the health of his wife to worry about. Rafael van der Vaart needs to decide where in Spain he wants to earn his money in the future: Valencia, London or maybe Milan? Little details, which might or might not have a negative impact on the team. Maybe Hamburg were playing beyond their means and are now back on planet Earth. Hamburg died a slow death during the second half of the season and more in depth forensic analysis is needed.

6. Leverkusen have semi-collapsed.
Wolfsburg were very lucky to draw the corporate derby against Leverkusen (2-2). But Leverkusen were again anything but convincing. Except for Rene Adler who is in excellent form (for the Euros?). Leverkusen, Hamburg and Stuttgart now form an UEFA Cup/Intertoto Cup trio with 48 points each.

7. Cottbus will probably stay in touch with the outside world for one more season.
Cottbus comes from the Sorbian Chóśebuz which means “pretty houses”. And maybe they have pretty houses in Cottbus. Few really dare to find out. The city lies in the far east of Germany close to the Polish border, and isn’t the first choice destination of the travelling support of other Bundesliga clubs. Energie Cottbus isn’t the first choice destination of many people in Cottbus either. Maybe because they are enjoying their pretty houses so much. Fact is, Energie Cottbus’ Stadium of Friendship only rarely enjoys a sell out crowd. There were only three sell out crowds since returning to the Bundesliga. Two of them were against Bayern, the third now came courtesy of an extra 3000 Hansa Rostock fans, who came to Cottbus for a crucial relegation six-pointer. And Cottbus won the game 2-1, after being one nil and one man down, handing the team a five point lifeline at the bottom of the table.

8. Duisburg keep scoring wonder goals – keep getting closer to relegation.
Duisburg’s players have a knack for scoring high quality goals. Those goals just aren’t enough to move Duisburg out of the relegation zone. This week Claudiu Niculescu scored a great goal from a free kick to make it 1-0 against Bochum. Sestak later equalised for Bochum to keep Duisburg at the wrong end of the table. The smaller clubs don’t receive a lot of love from this blog, and to change this a little bit, here’s a highlight reel of some of the goals Duisburg scored in the second half of the season – right up to Blagoy Georgiev’s beauty against Schalke.
 

9. Nuremberg are too dumb to stay up.
Nuremberg played host to relegation rival Bielefeld and stormed to a 2-0 lead at half time, just to give up the lead in the second half again. A demoralising draw sees them two points away from safety – coincidentally now enjoyed by Bielefeld. At least they will visit another demoralised team next week: Borussia Dortmund.

10. There could be a back door to Europe for Hertha.
Hertha drew their third match in a row and videos of those matches are now being used by teachers to explain the term mid-table. The complete meaninglessness of those matches also had a positive impact on Hertha’s yellow and red card statistics. Joe Simunic now rather blunders embarrassingly than getting send off embarrassingly. There is a chance that Hertha are topping the DFL’s internal Fair Play Ranking – which also takes other things into account, like the behaviour of the fans, so it’s hard to tell exactly. The Bundesliga is among the eight leagues with the highest UEFA Fair Play score. The highest ranked Bundesliga team will take part in a lottery with teams from the other leagues. With a bit of luck all teams from the Bundesliga Offside could play in Europe next season.

Abby doesn’t like the thought of it. She doesn’t feel the squad has the depth to compete in Europe and in the Bundesliga at once. Dieter Hoeneß likes the thought of it. Where it = money.

2. Werder Bremen announced their comeback.
And 18 minutes of highlights per 90 minutes ain’t bad.
 

3. Schalke is Schalke.
Schalke played some attractive football for a change. The defence was reminiscent of Werder circa two weeks ago and the offence was as un-clinical as Schalke can get. And that made the difference. Mirko Slomka also did as the fans and management demanded and played the winter signings Sanchez and Streit. Both added even more un-clinical finishing to Schalke’s game.

Either the attractive football and the bad result this weekend or the good results and unattractive football before must have had things turn against Mirko Slomka. He finally got fired. And since Schalke’s president once publicly undermined Slomka’s authority by stating, that Schalke might need a coach with international standing, it doesn’t surprise me at all, that the relatively unknown Dutch newcomer Fred Rutten is now the favourite to get the job.

4. Bayern Munich needed a rest after those epic 120 minutes against Getafe.
So why play the full 90 minutes, when you can put four goals past Dortmund in a fraction of the time; 22 minutes to be precise. Hitzfeld then allowed his players to do as they please for the remaining 68 minutes. Some went home early for dinner, some read a book and Andreas Ottl couldn’t resist adding a fifth goal in the second half.

5. Thomas Doll plays mind games with Bayern Munich.
He has now successfully tricked Bayern Munich into believing, that his Dortmund side is a mess. That his defence is too old and that his goalkeeper makes one crucial mistake per game. This is going to be one hell of a rude awakening for Bayern, when they meet a completely different Dortmund side for the cup final in Berlin. Yes, that must be it.

6. Hertha played away at Bochum and the match ended 1-1.
This one is for Abby, so she won’t have to write a match recap.

7. The newest club in crisis: Hamburg.
They were in a bit of a crisis before, but at least they were sitting pretty in the table. The worst performance of the season, and subsequently their first defeat at home at the hands of bottom side Duisburg, has changed all that. Hamburg have been dumped to fifth place and need to be careful not to throw it all away in the final stretch of the season. Josip Simunic should also teach Huub’s boys a thing or two about anger management.

8. 10 versus 11 is becoming fashionable.
Bayern came from behind to beat Bochum 3-1 with ten men. Just a few days later Getafe almost managed the same against Bayern. Now Hanover beat Frankfurt 2-1 being one man down. I’m starting to understand Mark van Bommel and his constant sending offs. He is a true leader and does everything for Bayern.

9. Yes, Karlsruhe still exist.
They were the positive surprise of the first half of the season and looked like UEFA Cup contenders. Then one player after the other jumped ship for more lucrative contracts with other Bundesliga clubs. And just like next season’s Karlsruhe squad fell apart, this season’s campaign did the same. Karlsruhe lost against Rostock and are five points behind the Intertoto Cup spot.

10. Bayer Leverkusen may be back or VfB Stuttgart may have a goalkeeper problem.
Bayer Leverkusen beat Stuttgart 3-0 and there is a good chance, that Leverkusen is back in the running for the Champions League. Though, we’ll only know for sure, once Leverkusen play against a team, whose goalkeeper isn’t responsible for two (and a half) of those three goals.

2. Bayern can’t complain.
Bayern maintained their seven points lead and are cruising to the title. And you can’t blame them. Bayern did their best to hand their rivals chances to catch up with them or even overtake them in the table this season. But no one showed any interest. Nuremberg put up a performance, which should be encouraging for the team and their fans, while Bayern can be happy that they got away with a sloppy 1-1 draw. The biggest news from a Bayern perspective was probably the fact that Lukas Podolski announced his return to Bundesliga goal-scoring after an absence of over one year.

3. First Bremen way dying in beauty and now they are just dying.
Bremen lost too many matches in the past weeks, but at least they did so in style. Now they’ve added bad football to their defeats, which makes those defeats much more believable. Duisburg’s win could have been all the sweeter if it wasn’t for all their competitors bagging points as well. But I mentioned this already.

4. Tim Wiese doesn’t know how to set up a wall.
The only point of this wall, which led to Duisburg’s first goal, was to block Tim Wiese’s view. Well done (jump to 1:37m for the free kick).

5. Hamburg gain a microscopic advantage.
Hamburg drew 8 of their last 11 Bundesliga matches. Quite a depressing stat, especially when you consider that this type of performance is enough to secure the second place in the table. Hamburg only managed a draw at home against Bielefeld and yet, thanks to Bremen and Leverkusen both losing their matches, they actually gained a three point advantage over their Champions League rivals. A very tough away game against Stuttgart is up next though, which could see Hamburg’s lead evaporate to 0 points.

6. David Jarolim likes to play with balls.
And sometimes this is a really stupid thing to do.

This got him a red card, which makes it 3 red cards in two matches for Hamburg. And the football Hamburg are playing is crap as well at the moment – while I’m at it.

7. Schalke go third and nobody knows why.
And our new Schalke blogger can’t help answering this question, since he couldn’t watch the games recently. He didn’t miss out. Schalke now got that precious third Champions League spot though. A job saver for Mirko Slomka. A 0-0 draw against Karlsruhe – the better team over 90 minutes – was enough.

8. Leverkusen get 0 out of 3 penalties.
Leverkusen had three close penalty calls all going against them, as well as two goals by Frankfurt, who are now in seventh place and only three points behind third placed Schalke. If the season continues like this, we could have teams in next season’s Champions League, who aren’t yet ready for this competition. Which would be just like this season actually /sarcasm.

9. Wolfsburg are the best Bundesliga team in 2008.
With 20 points from 9 matches, earning them the 8th place in the table and chances for the UEFA Cup (hell, they are only five points away from the Champions League). Credit where credit is due, albeit very reluctantly.

10. Stuttgart add the finishing touches to an odd matchday.
Stuttgart played out an uninspired 0-0 draw against Hanover, are level on points with Frankfurt, gained nothing and lost nothing, are still in the race for everything, have a six pointer against Hamburg coming up next and have a new blog here at the Bundesliga Offside to cover it all: VfB Stuttgart Offside

Schalke did well against Bayern, when they met in the Allianz Arena earlier in the season. Bayern were even a bit lucky, that Schalke failed to extend their lead and that a wrongly awarded free kick led to Bayern’s equaliser. So a Schalke team in good form should be able to hold Bayern at bay. Especially if it’s a home game in a stadium Bayern never managed to leave victorious before. In the end, Schalke can be happy with a 1-0 beating, given that Bayern easily could have made the score-line look worse. All of that, despite Slomka giving in to the criticism of not playing the new superstar signings (at €2m each…) and had started Vicente Sanchez ahead of Lövenkrands. Ze Roberto was also given a bit more time to shine, when he replaced Rakitic early in the second half. All with little effect.

A post match peace conference between Slomka and Schnusenberg intended to calm things down again. The match against Porto will tell, whether this helped the confidence of the squad in any way.

2. A lesson about squad strength and depth.
It’s not just the management, who aren’t too happy with Mirko Slomka. A lot of the fans feel he failed to develop the team. Schalke still have the same difficulty defending a lead and creating chances.

From an outside perspective it doesn’t look all that bad. Realistically it’s not too surprising that teams like Bayern, Bremen and Hamburg occupy the Champions League spots, even if Schalke have a chance to challenge them. And they still have this chance. There’s also potential in Schalke’s team with Rakitic and Rafinha receiving attention from European top clubs, while Jermaine Jones, Heiko Westermann and Christian Pander all debuted for the German national team recently. Which isn’t all too different from let’s say Bayer Leverkusen. Yet, the UEFA Cup clearly isn’t enough for a management whose club financing depends on 8 out of 10 Champions League seasons over the next years.

Yet, that there probably isn’t as much quality in their squad, as the management believes Mirko Slomka isn’t unearthing was demonstrated by Bayern Munich. Hitzfeld had decided to rest several key players, who had to go the full 120 minutes in the DFB-Pokal midweek, but those coming off the bench, would all be more than welcome additions to Schalke’s starting XI. And maybe this is a reality Schalke need to accept.

3. Hertha have their bi-annual early season high.
Hertha confidently beat Duisburg on Friday and could only be blamed for not running up the score a bit more (2-0). It was a display, which could have you believe, that Lucien Favre finally found the right tactical formation and the right players to play his preferred attacking passing game. Yet, Hertha were in the same position in the first half of the season, when they gave a glimpse of Favre’s vision in a 3-2 victory over Dortmund at home. Eventually though, the season continued to be topsy-turvy and it’ll be interesting to see, whether it’ll be any different this time around. An away game against Dortmund is waiting.

4. When in doubt put it in the back of the net.
Markus Rosenberg’s first goal against Dortmund might look like a classy cool back-heel finish, but in reality it was probably born more out of hesitation than intention. When the ball came rolling towards the goal and Rosenberg, Rosenberg knew he was offside and thus didn’t touch the ball. Once he realised the ball wouldn’t find the back of the net without his help, he quickly decided to put it in anyway. You know, just in case. And in this case it counted, since the referee hadn’t seen the offside position. Dortmund were understandably furious. Though, there is nothing to complain about Rosenberg’s second goal. A 2-0 victory keeps Bremen on the heels of Bayern.

5. Dortmund receive carte blanche to suck.
The defeat at Werder sees Dortmund trailing seven points from a place in Europe. Following the semi-final draw of the DFB-Pokal though, Dortmund may no longer need to worry too much about their Bundesliga campaign. Dortmund play at home against second Bundesliga strugglers Jena, while Bayern host Wolfsburg. Should Bayern beat Wolfsburg, Dortmund would only be one victory away from a return to European football. Should Wolfsburg cause an upset, it’ll be two. There’s no shorter and no easier way really and Thomas Doll can use the remaining 12 Bundesliga matches to find the right squad for those two matches.

6. Emma temporarily stops Stuttgart’s decay.
Emma was the name of a storm over Germany this weekend. It caused windy conditions in many stadiums and helped generate puns for busy German football writers – where storm translates to Sturm and attack/offence in football translates to Sturm as well. Being handicapped in this regard, I may just point out, that the DFL didn’t even bother starting Stuttgart’s away game against Cottbus because of Emma.

7. Karlsruhe are the Bundesliga Offside’s darlings of the weekend.
Just because they beat Wolfsburg 3-1. Next team to get the chance of winning this prestigious award will be Cottbus, and they clearly could use those three points as well.

8. Bochum should start planning their summer marketing tour through Japan.
A 2-0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen opened a 12 point gap between Bochum and the drop zone. It may be safe to assume, that the outlook of Bochum getting relegated is just as hypothetical as the idea of Bayern not winning the Bundesliga this year. One player, who has contributed to this upswing, is Japanese superstar Shinji Ono, who now lures plenty of Japanese reporters to Bochum’s home games. So it’s probably time for Bochum to make this transfer pay off off the pitch as well.

9. Safety first football doesn’t suite Leverkusen.
Maybe Michael Skibbe was looking for a dress rehearsal ahead of their UEFA Bundesliga Cup clash with Hamburg and the away goal rule in mind. Whatever the case, it didn’t look too pretty for a team hailed for playing one of the most entertaining football in the league.

10. Attacking football suites Hamburg.
Huub Stevens was more successful switching roles and playing all guns blazing against Frankfurt, who were happy to play passive bystanders most of the time. Hamburg won 4-1 and could still be blamed for not making the most of their chances.

Here’s referee Felix Brych showing Duisburg’s Bojan Vrucina a yellow-red card gangsta-style.

Well, being a referee won’t make you the coolest bloke in the neighbourhood, nor do the players on the pitch respect you, neither do the coaches on the sidelines and TV stations celebrate every mistake you make with seemingly endless slow-motion replays. But trying to score bonus points by imposing gangsta-chic on your referring won’t help your cause either. I’ve been passed the knowledge that holding a gun gangsta-style is a really easy way to miss the target. The same apparently applies to red cards. Vrucina had yet to receive his first yellow, when Brych tried to sent him off. Luckily for Vrucina, Brych could be convinced otherwise and he probably also reverted to showing cards the good old way again.

• Abby discussed the problem of leadership. (Hertha Offside)
• Abby also presented a practical example of how a few small changes to the GolTV schedule could help improve the working conditions for all Bundesliga bloggers. (Hertha Offside)
• Chris discussed the problem of colleagues stealing the topics for his blog posts. (Hamburg Offside)
• Angela looked into the concept of upwards communication, by which communication is two way, from player to referee, as well as vice versa. (Bayern Offside)
• Jan presented a case of spontaneous cannibalism within a group of males in fear of relegation. (Bundesliga Offside)