Philipp Lahm. Bayern’s disappointing draw at home against Schalke. Robben’s moment of madness for which he should have seen a red card. Luca Toni’s early departure from the Allianz Arena. All the possible talking points that Saturday’s game delivered were completely overshadowed by one simple thing: The Truth. Bayern’s reaction: a heavy monetary fine and the promise that Philipp Lahm will be the captain of the team one day.

Michael Skibbe. At the beginning of the season Frankfurt’s new coach tried to breath new life into an old diva, who had dumped drama for fiscal responsibility, a bun and a job in the local library. He did so with an overabundance of positive rhetoric. He talked up the players and the club and promised attractive attacking football. 12 matches later everyone in Frankfurt came to the realization, that they are nonetheless still looking at the same old players, club and football. The humiliating defeat against Leverkusen now prompted Michael Skibbe to swing to the other side of the extreme and start doom mongering. In post match interviews and press conferences he lashed out in all directions. He questioned the quality of the players, the composition of the squad, the scouting, the club and pretty much everything and everybody. He predicted that the club will move backwards if things stay as they are. His outburst and consequently his possible motives left the fans and press in Frankfurt puzzled. Was he looking to provoke his dismissal or preparing his resignation? Skibbe later rejected such suggestions, stating he is happy to be Frankfurt’s coach but that he wants to change things and move the club in the right direction. Frankfurt’s management is so far keeping a low profile and did not comment on Skibbe’s accusations/suggestions. For anyone with a soft spot for clubs living the wallflower life, it’ll interesting to see what happens next in Frankfurt.

Historical Revisionism. In light of recent events, Bayern’s performance in their DFB-Pokal match against Eintracht Frankfurt needs to be re-evaluated. It wasn’t one of Bayern’s best games this season. It was pretty much in line with the other games. After all, Bayern needed a full 14 minutes to score the first goal and another 15 minutes to score two more. 14 minutes into Bayer Leverkusen’s game against Frankfurt, the Werkself was meanwhile ready to call it a day and head to the showers, after Kroos had made it 3-0 in the 11th minute.

History Repeating. It’s a cherished Bundesliga tradition for Bayer Leverkusen to be in an excellent position in the table at this point of a season. In the past, that was always the cue for Bayern Munich to ground the perennial runner-ups with a humbling defeat, to remind them of their place in the Bundesliga food chain. Bayer’s visit to the Allianz Arena in two weeks should give us a good idea about whether legs will turn to jelly once agin, or whether Jupp Heynckes’ Leverkusen side has what it takes to mount a serious title challenge.

Schalke 04. Schalke are one of the most exciting clubs to follow at the moment. Not because the football is great – it’s not. It’s uninspired, one dimensional and gets the job done. But because you can peek over Felix Magath’s shoulder, as he step by step assembles a new team, fielding Schalke youth teams and promoting talents nobody ever heard about. Whether he manages to build a team with the potential to win the Bundesliga remains to be seen. His foremost task at the moment is to reduce the wage budget and balance the books again.

Referees. It wasn’t a good weekend for decisive offside calls. Bundesliga referees denied three perfectly good goals this weekend. With the situation at the bottom of the table getting more and more serious, that was particularly bad news for Nuremberg and Bochum. Nuremberg were denied a late equalizer against Mainz. Bochum should have taken the lead against Freiburg, but instead were punished with Freiburg’s winning goal in the 90th minute. Hertha meanwhile should have gotten a penalty against Cologne to get a more than deserved equalizer, while Hannover got a PK gift-wrapped to steal a point from Hamburg.

Hamburg’s Sick Bay. Hamburg’s two best strikers are now joined by their indisputably best player: Ze Roberto. A torn ligament will keep him out for at least the next game against Bochum. It threatens to once again become a season for Hamburg fans to contemplate all that could have been if only…

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Stuttgart coach Markus Babbel was happy to escape with a draw against Mönchengladbach. He can’t be happy with the lack of progress his team is making.

Hertha’s Plan for the Second Division. They better have one. No team with only 4 points after 12 matchdays has ever escaped relegation. It really saddens me to see what happened to the club and it’s also difficult to comprehend how much bad luck they are stacking up at the moment. Cologne had two shots on goal and some luck with close penalty calls. Hertha pretty much had everything else and lost. It’s safe to say that Hertha in their current shape would not be in such a misery. Hertha sealed their relegation earlier in the season – when the players were busy conspiring against their coach. Games like the one against Cologne are just the cherry on top.

Results: Leverkusen 4-0 Frankfurt, Bayern 1-1 Schalke, Hoffenheim 1-2 Wolfsburg, Bochum 1-2 Freiburg, Mönchengladbach 0-0 Stuttgart, Mainz 1-0 Nuremberg, Hannover 2-2 Hamburger SV, Hertha 0-1 Cologne, Bremen 1-1 Dortmund

3 wins, 2 draws and 1 defeat for Bundesliga clubs in Europe this week. The good news is that five out of six have it all in their own hands to progress to the next round. The odd club out is of course Hertha B… no wait.

Bayern Munich 0-2 Bordeaux. Bayern wanted a football teacher and got a textbook case of how little possession stats tell you about the outcome of a football match. The handball by Bordeaux’s Ciani was a textbook case of how you don’t get the right calls, when you are in a crisis either. Bayern now need Bordeaux, who are already qualified, to take some points from Juventus and then still need to beat the Italians in Turin to progress. I think a healthy dose of Bayern Dusel will be necessary to save this season’s Champions League campaign.

Hamburg 0-0 Celtic. It didn’t take a lot for Celtic to completely open up the Hamburg defense and take a shot at a one on one with Frank Rost. To be a bit more precise: one cross or one pass was enough. That should be worrying, because in combination with the Gladbach game, coaches should now have a nice set of tactical tools at their disposal to beat Hamburg. That being said, Hamburg otherwise were in control of the match and the draw keeps them in a good position to get to the next round – or even top the group.

Besiktas 0-3 Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg pulled off the overall most assured performance, even though it took 80 minutes to really make sure of the victory. A draw against Moscow will send them through, a defeat could set them up for quite a finale against Manchester United though.

Bremen 2-0 Austria Vienna. The Austrian Bundesliga had been the better Bundesliga this season – both head-to-head against German Bundesliga teams and in Europe overall coefficient wise. And in all fairness to the southern neighbors they should still be the better Bundesliga this season. Bremen played awful but got all the right calls in their favor to restore German Bundesliga bragging rights – although with the kind help of a Swedish referee. Bremen booked their ticket to the next round and can now afford to play even worse in their last two games.

Seville 1-1 Stuttgart. It was a game of two halves in Seville. One made of fear, the other made of courage. Stuttgart were lucky to escape the first 45 minutes only being one goal down. Stuttgart were unlucky not to take all three points in the second 45 minutes. The draw leaves Stuttgart in third place but with every chance to take second place and progress to the second round.

Heerenveen 2-3 Berlin. Three minutes into the match Hertha were one goal down. A familiar story with an unfamiliar twist and an unlikely hero this time around. Hertha equalized ending a goal drought lasting 461 minutes. They fell behind again. They equalized again. They snatched a winner in overtime. The player who set up the first two goals and scored the winner goes by the name Artur Wichniarek. Hertha are now second in their group, giving them a decent chance to combine their relegation battle with a few more fun trips around Europe.

Rookie Coach of the Year. Also known as the Markus Babbel Trophy. Mainz 05’s coach Thomas Tuchel had been the only contender for this prestigious prize until Bochum appointed Heiko Herrlich. Herrlich didn’t have the best of starts, losing 2-1 to Frankfurt, but we’ll have to wait and see, whether he can turn it around at his club. Something that Tuchel already did in impressive fashion with Mainz. This weekend his Mainz side came back twice to draw with Wolfsburg (3-3) and grab their 18th point. 18 points don’t guarantee you a spot in next season’s Bundesliga, but it’s probably safe to say, that Mainz will be part of it nonetheless. That’s surely disappointing news for all the clubs at the bottom, who had hoped for Mainz to have a stranglehold on one of the two direct relegation spots. The Markus Babbel Trophy is not just an honor though, but also a warning, as Stuttgart are proving this season. Time will tell whether Thomas Tuchel is the next big thing in Bundesliga coaching, or just a one-hit wonder – even if it’s one claiming to have a clear vision, tactical concept, a large DVD collection and all that.

Blame Games. Hamburg decided to take things as they come and not complain too much about their ever more prominent injury list. They were playing well enough indeed and backup players stepped up to take responsibility. Hamburg drew with Leverkusen, but could argue that Leverkusen came to park the bus. Hamburg drew with Schalke, but could argue that they had to play with ten men in the second half. Hamburg lost against Mönchengladbach but are running out of arguments this time around. The blame for the defeat and for wasting the third consecutive chance to take over the top of the table is now handed back and forth between Jerome Boateng and Bruno Labbadia. Boateng had received a knock from Gladbach’s striker Raul Bobadilla and was in pain throughout the second half. He signaled that he would like to play on and stated later that he didn’t want to let his team down – there were no central defenders left on the bench. Yet, it was more than obvious for all to see that Boateng was no longer fit to play. All except Labbadia. Labbadia preferred to rely on Boateng’s error of judgement and kept him on the pitch until the 84th minute. Boateng is currently doubtful for Hamburg’s game against Celtic on Thursday by the way. Ideally, both Boateng and Labbadia will have learned a lesson from this match. One lesson Hamburg definitely haven’t learned yet though, is the one they have been taught all season long: they can’t defend their leads, independent from fit, unfit or red carded central defenders. This seems to be a general problem, similar to their tendency to completely underperform against smaller teams.

Depth. Both Leverkusen and Bremen received a lot of positive feedback for playing negative football this season. The consensus was, that both teams were less naive and more mature. In other words, both had to be considered as serious title candidates. Something which hasn’t yet been considered, when considering their title credentials, is the depth of their squads though. Leverkusen did well to compensate Patrick Helmes’ long term injury so far, thanks to Stefan Kiessling and Eren Derdiyok. They also dominated Schalke this weekend, despite missing Simon Rolfes and Renato Augusto in midfield. Yet, when Sami Hyypiä had to be substituted for Lukas Sinkiewicz, the drop in quality was immense. It probably can’t serve as the sole explanation as to why Leverkusen managed to give up a two goal lead and draw the match in the last ten minutes, but it’s still safe to say that Leverkusen have a very mediocre central defense without Hyypiä. Werder Bremen have been blessed with a mostly injury free starting eleven. The moment they lost Claudio Pizarro they also promptly struggled at Nuremberg on Saturday and needed Aaron Hunt’s last minute heroics to draw the match. But that could be a coincidence. Far more interesting will be to see, how the team reacts to the news that Torsten Frings will miss the next three weeks with a torn muscle. Werder Bremen did well to stabilize the defense this season, but they did nothing to add any depth.

Running. In the days before women cared – and were not supposed to care – about football, they denounced the sport as being a pointless game of men running after a ball for 90 minutes. Except for the pointless bit, they certainly grasped the very essence of a game, where only 1 player out of 22 is usually in control of the ball. The next best thing the other 21 players can do is to run and getting players to run remains one of the game’s biggest mysteries. This is where Lucien Favre failed and where Markus Babbel is still succeeding. Stuttgart’s players aren’t doing it in a particularly structured manner, but they are doing quite a lot of it. Enough to earn a 0-0 draw against Bayern, whose running is much more structured but still terribly uninspired.

Passing. OK, passing the ball shouldn’t be underestimated either, as Hertha proved to the world on Friday, when they failed to string together even two passes for the whole 90 minutes and subsequently failed to get anything from their game against Dortmund (2-0).

Results: Dortmund 2-0 Hertha, Wolfsburg 3-3 Mainz, Stuttgart 0-0 Bayern, Hamburg 2-3 Gladbach, Cologne 0-1 Hannover, Nuremberg 2-2 Bremen, Schalke 2-2 Leverkusen, Freiburg 0-1 Hoffenheim, Frankfurt 2-1 Bochum

2 Own Goals. When Bordeaux’s Ciani picked up where Freiburg’s Cha Du-Ri left off during the weekend, I had the feeling, that Bayern might have finally shrugged off all the bad karma, that had plagued them during the Klinsmann season and replaced it with an updated version of Bayern Dusel, in which Bayern don’t even need to score the goals themselves anymore. I was quite wrong with that assumption. Hamit Altintop returned the favor with another own goal, which by that time already put Bordeaux in the lead.*

2 Red Cards. Before Bordeaux took the lead, but after the French champions had equalized, Thomas Müller picked up his second yellow for a late tackle. With Bayern reduced to ten men, there was a small chance for an excuse for some of their poor play in that game, but unfortunately they had already played just as bad with 11 man, so Müller’s red wasn’t just unnecessary, it couldn’t even serve as a scapegoat. Daniel van Buyten eventually capped off a miserable night for Bayern, when he picked up a straight red for a last ditch tackle, which also resulted in Bordeaux’s second penalty.

2 Penalties. The first one was awarded following a foul by Butt, who made up for his mistake with a good save. He then channeled his inner Tim Wiese and saved the second penalty as well. Bayern eventually lost 2-1, still leaving them with a chance to win the head-to-head against Bordeaux when the teams meet next in the Allianz Arena.

2 Draws. Wolfsburg started off well at home against Besiktas, created a few good chances and then slowly lost their grip on the game in the second half. All the more so after their out of form striker Grafite picked up a straight red card twenty minutes from time. A 0-0 draw keeps Wolfsburg in second place, but they face tricky trips to Istanbul and Moscow next. Things looked much better for Werder Bremen, who took a two goal lead in Vienna and appeared on their way to a third straight victory, until the old Werder defense made a surprise cameo appearance and allowed Austria Vienna to draw level and keep the German-Austrian bragging rights firmly south of the border.

2 Bad. Hertha didn’t play all that bad by their current standards, but at the moment even the third worst team in the Dutch Eredivisie finds a way to score a goal against and eventually beat Hertha. And when you are down don’t expect the referee to hand you a lifeline by awarding the penalty, that should have been given following a handball in the box by a Heerenveen player.

2 Injuries. Romeo Castelen and Jerome Boateng were this week’s prominent additions to Hamburg’s impressive sickbay.

1 Winner. That didn’t stop Hamburg grinding out a 1-0 victory at Celtic Park.

2 Late. Hamburg’s win couldn’t save what was ultimately a very below par European week though.

* While looking up the match stats I found out that the goal was eventually awarded to Bordeaux’s Marc Planus.

Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. VfB Stuttgart will host Sevilla in the Champions League on Tuesday and then head off to Hannover for, what is now, a relegation six-pointer. Even if you take the admittedly slight over dramatization out of the equation, Stuttgart still end up facing the worst start to a season in 35 years. This weekend it was Schalke’s task to heap more misery on Markus Babbel, and they duly delivered with a somewhat fortunate 2-1 victory. Look for the upside in the downturn, and you’ll find a much more spirited and courageous display by the Stuttgart players. Sporting director Horst Heldt had spent some time in front of TV cameras reminding the players of their duties and trying to take pressure away from his coach. The latter didn’t quite work out. The team lacks organization, tactical finesse and is overly reliant on players individually running the show up front or at the back. A blunder by Stefano Celozzi gifted Schalke the first goal and a lack of creativity by the likes of Hleb, made it difficult to break down Schalke’s defense. At least Stuttgart have yet another shooting star to look forward to with Julian Schieber, who mildly compensates for transfers which currently and again struggle to deliver.

Cost Control. It ain’t pretty but Schalke are grinding their way to the top. Once having arrived there though, the club faces a fire sale to balance the books again, following years of overly optimistic economic planning ahead. The following season will invariably result in suckage in Europe and something comparable in the league. No wait, that was another club.

The Sick Bay. Another week, another long term injury for a Hamburg player. This time around Romeo Castelen’s troubled knee signaled it may be in trouble once again. The speedy winger is facing a potentially month long injury setback. This is a particularly tragic one, as Romeo Castelen just returned to professional football following a break of almost two years. Hamburg fans now have to look forward in terror to the games against Celtic and Schalke, fearing to lose ever more players.

Louis van Gaal’s Football Philosophy. With one quarter of the season in the books, I think we now have a much clearer picture of the kind of football Louis van Gaal wants to play with Bayern: pass the ball to Müller, who then either scores himself or sets up Freiburg’s Cha Du-Ri for the easy tap-in own-goal.

For a more accurate assessment you might still want to check out the Bayern Offside.

Subs are not Ball Boys. Hannover’s Mario Eggimann had to learn this the hard way after being yellow carded for passing the ball to his goalkeeper while warming up on the sidelines in his team’s 2-1 defeat to Frankfurt.

Desperate, Desolate and Doomed. Hertha.

Spin Doctor. Leverkusen’s coach Jupp Heynckes is an elder statesman type coach, who transcended the idiocy and irrationality of the day to day football business years ago. As such I’ll let him get away with first proclaiming, that we might indeed see a goal fest when his side and Bruno Labbadia’s Hamburg meet given that both stand for attacking football. Just to suggest that he knew it all along, that the game would actually turn out to be a total snoozefest. At this point the resident blogger of the Bundesliga Offside wants to inform you, that I’m also not the least bit surprised about all the things that happened this weekend. I was just too lazy to blog my predictions beforehand.

Minus 7 Goals Later. When Bremen and Hoffenheim met at the Weserstadion last season, the game eventually mutated into an open ended 5-4 goal fest in Bremen’s favor. This time the game mutated into a controlled and confident 2-0 victory in Bremen’s favor. The neutral observer is getting nostalgic. The Werder Bremen fan is looking at a team which is slowly but surely moving itself into a position, where it’s only a matter of time until someone proclaims them as serious title candidates.

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

Referee Knuth Kircher shows Tim Wiese a yellow card after a foul on Hoffenheim’s striker Maicosuel.

(AP Photo/Joerg Sarbach)

619. Tim Wiese has kept a clean sheet for 619 minutes and counting. Remember, he did so while playing for Werder Bremen. Any other season this would have equalled setting the difficulty to legendary. This season though, Werder Bremen’s defense has gone through a remarkable transformation – testing the boundaries of plausibility. It’s still an amazing achievement. During this weekend’s 2-0 victory over Hoffenheim, Wiese even saved a penalty, earning him extra style-points.

Tim Wiese has now surpassed goalkeeping legends Jens Lehmann (Schalke 04 / 1996/97 / 601 minutes) and Uli Stein (HSV / 1985/86 / 603 minutes) to make it into the Bundesliga’s All-Time Top 5 and is 23 minutes away from breaking the record of another famous Werder Bremen goalkeeper. The team which will try to deny him next weekend will be VfL Bochum.

315. Bayern’s goalless streak lasted 315 minutes and was ended by Thomas Müller, 42 minutes into Bayern’s match against Freiburg. That’s pretty much all you need to know about Bayern’s performance.

8. Hertha’s abysmal defense helped Nuremberg to a comfortable 3-0 victory and Hertha to a club record 8th Bundesliga defeat in a row. Hertha have now tied Wuppertaler SV’s 8 consecutive defeats (1974/75) and are two defeats short of the Bundesliga’s All-Time Top 3 comprising Arminia Bielefeld (1999/2000), Nuremberg (1983/84) and the officially worst Bundesliga side ever Tasmania 1900 Berlin (1965/66). None of the clubs mentioned here escaped and were relegated. Judging from current form, you must wonder why exactly Hertha should be the exception.

26. Hertha’s defense has conceded 26 goals in 9 matches. Last season, Hertha’s defense had conceded 26 goals after 22 matches.

83. Leverkusen’s central defender Sami Hyypiä won 83% of his one-on-one situations. The other 17% accurately reflect the total amount of chances Hamburg managed to create throughout the match.

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)

As a prelude to the match Lukas Podolski channeled his best Walter Ulbricht impersonation – head of East Germany’s Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 – to declare that Cologne are going to Munich to win the match. A statement, which isn’t 100% historically accurate, but still passes as a good enough version of Ulbricht’s infamous words “Nobody has the intention of building a wall” back in 1961. This statement got exposed as a blatant lie one day (or two months in the real world) later when the match kicked off and Cologne settled down in their penalty box – charmingly redubbed Little Berlin. Most critics agreed that Cologne had done a wonderful job with their stage design and commitment to historical accuracy and indeed hardly any dissident Cologne players, who disagreed with Soldo and his coaching, escaped from the penalty box.

Cue Hertha Berlin, who quickly held a press conference to reassure all citizens of former West Berlin, worried by the events in Munich and fearing for their (Bundesliga) existence. Due to the unavailability/inexistence of any American top coaches, Hertha settled for Friedhelm Funkel as their John F. Kenneday, and he immediately took pride in the words: “Ich bin ein Berliner” – or Jelly Doughnut if you like a good urban myth.

Late in the first half Cologne’s central defender Geromel eventually ventured into Bayern’s half all the way to the penalty box for a shy attempt on goal. A metaphor for the 1970s and chancellor Willy Brandt’s then controversial “Neue Ostpolitik“. A policy of “change through rapprochement” to bring the two Germany’s closer together and make the wall more permeable. A policy which is now seen by some as – unintentionally – paving the way for the downfall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

At half-time Louis van Gaal stormed into Cologne’s dressing room requesting “Mr Soldo, tear down this wall.” With little effect though.

In the second half Bayern focussed on a long rendition of the peaceful Monday demonstrations in Leipzig in 1989 and proclaimed “Mia san mia”, which is Bavarian and sort of translates to the “We are the People” slogan used by the demonstrators. Most people in the audience agreed that this part of the story had been dragged out a bit too much and suffered from the uninspired performance by the Bayern players and except for the peacefulness didn’t capture the mood and importance of the original events.

Though, the real downer was the absence of any kind of fitting conclusion. As it turned out the DFL wasn’t willing to meet David Hasselhoff’s astronomical wage demands and foot the energy bill for his leather jacket. But you simply can’t bring down the wall without the cheese and ridiculousness worthy of the late 1980s and Germany.

At the end of the day, I personally thought it wasn’t that bad. But then again my team earned themselves a point for their troubles. For all the Bayern fans in attendance and the neutral football fans at home, who didn’t happen to be history buffs, the match was more like an unwatchably boring 0-0 draw.

Battle Chess. When a commenter on one of Germany’s public broadcasters attempted to summarize and categorize the match between Hamburg and Bayern, he kept talking about this game being for tactic freaks, but with an uncertainty to his statements, as though he didn’t really know what was going on and didn’t want to admit to it. But then again, who does? As such, the first thirty minutes of the match, where Bayern were in control but little else, were mostly used to get to grips with who was playing where, why and how you put that in numbers. At some point a panel of experts agreed on a 3-3-3-1 for Bayern countered by a 4-4-2 diamond by Hamburg, except that Elia was really tripling up the left wing with Aogo and Boateng to put pressure on Breno, while Lahm casually checked by his old friends in Bayern’s back line to take Elia out of the game. All of that produced a high quality 0-0 at half-time and it all no longer mattered when Demel’s injury forced Labaddia to make a slew of positional changes, which accidentally put Louis van Gaal checkmate at the same time – despite van Gaal’s courageous efforts to counter Labbadia by reverting to a 4-3-3. Either that or it was all about a bit of individual brilliance by Ze Roberto and the lack of the same on the other end, that produced the solitary winning goal. So, whether the Bundesliga now has its’ very own Kasparov vs Karpov remains to be seen. Both coaches have a tendency to lose their teams, while they are thinking through their next 37 moves.

In-Jokes. While following the chess game and waiting for Louis to make his next move, I wondered whether coaches have their own way of joking around with each other. I often notice how two coaches have a quick chat after a game or prior to the post match press conference, which usually ends in laughter. In case of Bruno and Louis it would have been like

Bruno: “Got it?”
Louis: “Trochowski?”
Bruno grins, Louis laughs and the press conference begins.

After all Trochowski’s sole role in this game was to fool Bayern and himself into believing Hamburg might actually try anything via the right side. Obviously Labbadia would never admit to that, as it would make Trochowski very angry and tempt him to unleash one of his fiery long range shots at Labbadia, which will go about 10 meters wide.

That’s Clear. As Lucien Favre used to say when he used to be Hertha’s coach. Now he has been fired. Six Bundesliga defeats in a row broke his back on the outside. The team working against him broke him on the inside. The Hertha Offside picks it up from here.

Next in the Line. Borussia Mönchengladbach traded their excellent start to the season and the Juan Arango hype for four defeats in a row and a tough fixture calendar. Anyone who always knew and always doubted the signing of Michael Frontzeck as Gladbach coach may now get an account on a random Borussia Mönchengladbach board or blog and start posting.

Arne Friedrich. When typing Arne Friedrich into the Google searchbox, the service’s automatic search term completion suggests I might primarily be interested in the topics girlfriend, gay or Nutella. I really meant to type dressing room cancer though, but that doesn’t yield any satisfactory results – yet. Still, somehow Friedrich always seems to pop up whenever there’s a rift in a team I have sympathies for. A while back Little Miss Sunshine used Ballack’s shake up with Löw in the German national team, to tell the press how intolerably rude he feels the captain is. Just that he didn’t realize that players aren’t the weakest link and that Ballack is a much better football player than him. In case of Lucien Favre he didn’t realize either that this man knows much more about football than him, but he remembered that bit about who the weakest link is. Now the only question the HSV sympathizer in me has left, is how he managed to get rid of Dietmar Beiersdorfer as well.

Bavarian Beauty. A very average game between two quite evenly matched teams ended 0-0 for Cologne after 80 minutes and 1-0 for Leverkusen after 90 minutes. Leverkusen’s coach Jupp Heynckes felt like he was in Munich all over again: “This is how Bayern won the titles in its’ history: through confidence and believe in its’ own strength”. Whether this will be enough for Bayer against teams with a more mature and fine tuned game (Hamburg, Bayern, Hoffenheim) remains to be seen. The fans will certainly welcome a change to the club’s die in beauty approach of the past.

Dreary Derby. Schalke beat Dortmund 1-0 and I personally was a bit disappointed by the balance between real controversy (none) vs. made up controversy (some) in Germany’s biggest derby.

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