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

0. The combined number of goals Bayern’s strike duo Miroslav Klose and Luca Toni scored so far this season.

1. The number of goals former Bayern striker Lukas Podolski scored so far this season. Lukas Podolski joined Cologne in the summer, after Klose and Toni were continuously given the nod ahead of him. That should show ‘em.

10. Hertha stopped their losing streak against Wolfsburg, but kept their run of games without a victory. In 1990/1991 Hertha managed 18 successive games without a victory and were duly relegated.

11. Leverkusen scored 11 of their 21 goals from set pieces.

101. Mario Gomez is the highest valued player in the Bundesliga’s official trading card game with 101 points.

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)

With a couple of lazy days during the international week coming up, it’s time to take a look at how season number 47 of the Bundesliga is shaping up so far.

NEW: A slow start to the season.
Last season the Bundesliga stormed out of the gates all guns blazing, racking up an average of 3.11 goals per game after the first four matchdays. The ratio eventually dropped to around 2.92 as the season progressed, but by then the league had already successfully drawn our attention to a small village in southern Germany and eventually to the stories behind all the weekly changing table toppers. This season, we are looking at a rather subdued start with just 2.69 goals per game so far and the realization that Hoffenheim have turned into just another Bundesliga side. But who knows what kind of compelling narratives this season can come up with as we move along. I sure hope it’s better than just telling the story of Rib and Rob(TM) and how they guided Bayern to an undisputed Bundesliga title, made all the more drab by a coach, who already had two humor bypass operations.

SAME: Hamburg’s early season form.
Last season Martin Jol’s Hamburg delivered 10 points and 11 goals in 4 matches, the top of the table and the promise of exciting and successful football. This season Bruno Labbadia’s Hamburg delivered 10 points and 12 goals in 4 matches, the top of the table and the promise of exciting and successful football. Martin Jol couldn’t quite deliver on that promise. As it turned out Hamburg had already scored 1/4 of their Bundesliga goals for the season, leaving not much room for the remaining fixtures and what little room was left was filled with way too many longballs. But Martin Jol had to do without the likes of Eljero Elia and Ze Roberto, so maybe there’s hope for a more successful campaign under Labbadia.

NEW: Hamburg’s early first half form.
Martin Jol’s Hamburg made a name for themselves as the undisputed comeback kids of the league, after his team came back from being 2-0 down in three of their four matches. This season it’s up to Hamburg to challenge the other club’s comebackability, as they usually only need three minutes for their first goal and between the 15th and 20th minute the opposition is already on a one-way street to defeat. A much more charitable attitude in the second half, means that Hamburg are not yet undisputed title candidates though.

SAME: Bayern’s “worst in…” season starts.
With just two points from three matches and an embarrassing defeat at the “Stadium at the Riven Path” in Mainz, Louis van Gaal had even one-upped Jürgen Klinsmann’s habit of producing worst ever/since results for the Bavarian giants. It was the worst start to a season since 1966 to be precise and without it, we may have never seen Arjen Robben in the Bundesliga so kudos to van Gaal.

NEW: Al Pacino pep talks.
How do you make an unfancied team like newly promoted Mainz beat Bayern Munich for the first time in most people’s memories (and those who claim to remember a Mainz victory probably also only think they do remember one, while it really never happened)? By letting Al Pacino do all the pre-game talking for you, as Mainz’s coach Thomas Tuchel did and then he just had to sit back and watch his team play the Bavarians off the park for 45 minutes.
 

 
Tuchel said, that he had some more ideas on how to motivate his team and that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a movie all the time. Whatever it was he did prior to his team’s next match against Mönchengladbach though, it didn’t work out at all and Mainz lost by two goals and two goalkeepers.

NEW: Wolfsburg’s first halves.
Wolfsburg were second best in the first 45 minutes of their matches against Stuttgart, Cologne, Hamburg and Bayern. Their firepower was enough to steal all three points from Stuttgart and Cologne, stage a brief comeback against Hamburg and threaten to equalize against Bayern in the second 45 minutes. Armin Veh argued that being defending champions means, his team could no longer counter attack as often and freely as last season. He also seems to want his team to find out for themselves, what to do instead and it usually takes one or two goals by the other team until they get a vague idea.

NEW: A large gaping hole at Bremen’s back.
Werder Bremen are currently giving the Weserstadion a little make-over and are using the opportunity to straighten the curves and remove the last remnants of the running track, leaving one end of the stadium wide open. Meanwhile, that large gaping hole in Bremen’s defense stayed the same, as exactly €0 were invested in defensive reinforcements in the summer. That’s my Werder.

SAME: Cologne’s lifeless and bloodless team.
Last year this fact was brushed over by an angry man filled with adrenaline running up and down the sidelines trying to transfer some of his surplus energy onto the team. This man is now in Turkey and was replaced by the quiet Zvonimir Soldo and his mute assistant Michael Henke. And if anything, they’ve at least helped to identify the problem.

SAME: Refereeing discussions.
Lively arguments about goal-line technology, video reviews, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th officials and whether someone’s grandma could have spotted that offside position make 2009/2010 feel very much like 2008/2009.

NEW: Refereeing decisions.
There have already been four matches without any cards whatsoever compared to a total of six matches last season. Could be a coincidence but the referee in the Hamburg – Cologne match also looked like handing out a yellow card would be the worst thing he could do during the match (while in reality he couldn’t have done any worse than allowing Hamburg to score two irregular goals). Maybe there’s been some internal agreement to optimize the number of cards shown during the matches – whether it has any positive side-effects remains to be seen though. And there are good news for the players as well, as arguing with the referee might actually and finally bear some fruits. Schalke’s Benedikt Höwedes was successfully argued out of a red card by his team mates and Hamburg’s Frank Rost even one-upped that by convincing the ref that a goal scored against him was offside.

SAME: Hertha’s win-lose formula.
0 points = Hertha play well and lose.
1 point = Hertha play badly but at least don’t concede a goal / Hertha play well but can’t score.
3 points = Hertha play badly, don’t concede a goal and Kacar scores in the 88th minute.

NEW: Hertha’s defense.
Josip Simunic went looking for rural excitement but all he did was exposing Arne Friedrich as his waterboy, incapable of wearing the captain’s armband and stabilizing a defense at the same time.

SAME: Jens Lehmann.

NEW: Stuttgart’s heavy rotation.
Give Stuttgart coach Markus Babbel some cash and a place in the Champions League and he suddenly feels like he is in Liverpool again and needs to constantly rotate every available player, coach and green keeper in and out of the starting eleven. Just 5 points from a possible 12 mean that’s not yet working out all that well for him.

SAME: Felix Almighty.
Felix Magath may have switched clubs and reduced his financial scope, but he quickly made sure, there aren’t too many people left interfering with his decision making at Schalke – with (ex-)president Josef Schnusenberg being the latest casualty. All this hasn’t turned the club into title contenders yet as Schalke pulled off a vintage 08/09 performance that ended in a 1-0 defeat to Freiburg on Saturday.

NEW: Freiburg, Nuremberg and Mainz.
Their task is to replace Bielefeld, Cottbus and Karlsruhe and as far as the football is concerned they are a definite improvement. While they all lack Bundesliga-grade firepower up front, their overall gameplan and tactical approach is quite sophisticated. How much of that will remain intact over the course of a season-long fight against relegation remains to be seen though.

SAME: Ze Roberto.
Supposedly one year older, but you couldn’t tell.

NEW: Eintracht Frankfurt’s Swagger.
A few years ago Eintracht Frankfurt were a broke diva commuting between the first and second division, with distant memories of better Bundesliga days the only thing fans could hold on to. Along came Heribert Bruchhagen and Friedhelm Funkel with their vision of an office clerk Pygmalion transformation and they succeeded. Out went the debts, the yoyo and the dreams and in came the health insurance, cubicle and the promise of a two-week holiday in Brazil once the 30 year mortgage on the stadium has been paid back. For a few seasons Eintracht fans thought this was all well and nice and solid, but as time went by, more and more realized there could be nothing more depressing than watching a football team mirroring your boring life for you every second Saturday. Thus Friedhelm Funkel had to go and Michael Skibbe, of all coaches, was assigned the task bring the fun back to Frankfurt. Oddly enough, he has succeeded so far with an away victory over Bremen, a should-have-been-a-victory-if-not-for-the-ref against Dortmund and 90 minutes which more often than not look like football again. The team will most probably still end up somewhere in the greyish depths of midtable mediocrity but the fans will still think that it hadn’t been more fun finishing 13th in quite a while.

SAME: Incomplete lists.
So feel free to add your own observations via the comments.

Bayern
Pre-Season: Bayern’s pre-season started like all pre-seasons during odd numbered years by putting between 50 to 100 million Euros into circulation, to make up for not signing anyone during the even numbered years. This time they also played a mean practical joke on Stuttgart by handing them more money for Mario Gomez, than they could ever compute. All they had to do then was sit back and lmao, while Stuttgart failed in their amateurish attempts to buy players like Huntelaar or Vagner Love from their monopoly money. Bayern’s new coach Louis van Gaal meanwhile locked himself up in a monastery to learn German. Because when you can handle the celibacy and the ascetic, you can also master German modal verbs.
Verdict: Last season Bayern voiced their wish to play better, harder, faster, stronger attacking football by signing Jürgen Klinsmann. This season they just wanted someone who can teach football, and still might get their previous wish granted. But it could also all go horribly wrong, should Franz Beckenbauer make the mistake and ask van Gaal why Luca Toni isn’t playing.

Hamburg
Pre-Season: Trauma lead to chaos and from chaos emerged Ze Roberto and with Ze Roberto came order and with order came Eljero Elia and Marcus Berg and with them hopes for a better season. The trauma was exclusive to Hamburg boss Bernd Hoffmann. The chaos his making. The Ze Roberto signing a “Wag the Dog” attempt to silence the angry mob of HSV fans, for whom seeing Martin Jol and Didi Beiersdorfer suddenly flee the club wasn’t quite as convenient as it possibly was for Hoffmann. What was even more convenient was, that almost everyone was on holiday while all this happened, and those who returned to the Nordbank Arena to the first training sessions suddenly and surprisingly looked like title contenders.
Verdict: Hamburg have the best balanced squad of any Bundesliga club. Some of this quality and depth was bought this summer, some returned from injury and one needed to be rediscovered at this year’s U21 Euros. So, who or what could possibly stop them? What: The Crunch. Who: Bruno Labaddia. Labaddia likes tactics and he likes to fantasize about boring nihilistic Champions League games, where the teams compressed and decompressed space so cleverly, that Labaddia hopes to gain some credibility himself by mentioning it. But can he teach it?

Wolfsburg
Pre-Season: It’s been a good summer for Volkswagen after acquiring the Bundesliga title, Porsche and Obafemi Martins. At the same time strategic partnerships in key areas of the pitch were extended and improved by binding Grafite, Dzeko and Misimovic to new contracts, despite attempts by the Mediaset/Italian Government conglomerate to gain a controlling stake in Dzeko. Volkswagen are also turning their focus away from Felix Magath’s high top speeds and quick acceleration to a more controlled, environment friendly and future proof passing approach by Armin Veh.
Verdict: Kept the key players. Check. Added depth. Check. Ruin it all with the wrong coach. Maybe.

Leverkusen
Pre-Season: What has Bayer done wrong to upset both the pharmacy and football gods? Tamiflu is being produced by Hoffmann-La Roche and their Bundesliga equals Wolfsburg won the title just like that, while their own team predictably came second somewhere once again. Bayer fans need not despair though. Rudi Völler came to the rescue and tried to fix all that was wrong with Leverkusen over the past few years. He singlehandedly expanded the stadium, so that Bayer no longer needs to live with the stigma of having the smallest ground in the Bundesliga. He signed a coach who had won the Champions League with Real Madrid instead of losing it against them and who won the Bundesliga with Bayern instead of… you know the drill. Instead of just signing young high potentials like Eren Derdiyok, players in their mid thirties are warmly welcomed as well. Just don’t try to get a job at Leverkusen when you are 27 and in your footballing prime.
Verdict: One thing Rudi Völler didn’t change was the team’s intro music, which still reminds the players prior to every home game that “I can’t change, I can’t change, I can’t change.”

Bochum
Pre-Season: For Bochum fans pre-season is the new regular season. The team cruised from one impressive friendly result to the next, no bones broke and no muscles ruptured. The players evaded tackles so effortlessly and read the oppositions attacking moves so easily, that the club decided to add artificial dirt to the new kits, to at least keep the facade of being a workers and not a snobbish artists club. They even had to make the kit extra ugly, to have at least a small chance to meet demand.
Verdict: Should the inexplicable and unimaginable happen, Bochum fans will always have the summer of ‘09, right?

Dortmund
Pre-Season: Dortmund completed all their transfers in the winter already and the team that was sent on their holidays was perfectly intact anyway. A quiet summer at the pool was on the cards for sporting director Michael Zorc and coach Jürgen Klopp. Eventually they decided to sign Dimitar Rangelov from Cottbus and secure Sven Bender through a player swap, just so nobody could say they just hung around the pool and did nothing. After discovering Lucas Barrios’ 37 goals in 2008 compilation video on YouTube, the club was also just too happy to grant Alex Frei his request for a celebrated return to his native Switzerland.
Verdict: Should Lucas Barrios score another 37 goals in the upcoming Bundesliga season, nothing will stand in the club’s way.

Berlin
Pre-Season: Hertha fans have grown accustomed to the curious fact, that all money is suddenly gone in time for a new season. That Dieter Hoeness could be gone just as suddenly was a refreshingly new and unique situation though. Meanwhile, sightings of an ecstatic Lucien Favre, running naked through the streets of Berlin and randomly hugging people are supposedly completely unrelated to these news according to club officials. Hertha’s new dynamic duo Preetz and Favre then spent the rest of the summer lowering expectations and enjoying the sadistic pleasures of inviting players to trials, just to send them back home again.
Verdict: Hertha have so successfully lowered expectations for the new season, that the club will probably do something outrageous again and finish 4th or win a cup competition or something.

Cologne
Pre-Season: Cologne is a club of extremes. New signing Sebastian Freis was welcomed at Cologne’s central station by a single club representative, who picked him up to bring him to the training ground. New signing Lukas Podolski was welcomed by over 20000 fans at the Rhein Energie Stadion complete with a live TV broadcast of his first training session. The illustrious Christoph Daum suddenly ran away to Turkey and was replaced by possibly the most boring coaching combo of the league with Zvonimir Soldo and Michael Henke. In between, Michael Meier found time to offer contracts to Atletico Madrid rejects and negotiate with young Rumanian starlets who then appear to have five different agents and whose club boss sits in jail.
Verdict: Cologne’s fans are frequently ridiculed for their delusions of grandeur, but that’s just a cliche. This season most fans would be happy with comfortable midtable madness and some home games which are just a little bit less dull than what Christoph Daum had to offer last season. This will suffice to put the club in a good position to tackle the Champions League spots in 2010/2011.

The transfer period started with two early big money moves. In fact, very big money moves anywhere outside of Madrid. Diego sealed a transfer to Juventus for €24.5m, while Bayern were willing to spend €30m for Mario Gomez; further bonus payments not included. With the market awash with fresh money, the stage was set for the Euros to start dripping further down the food chain – what actually followed though, was a month long transfer crunch.

One month to swap, replace and recycle two thirds of the Bundesliga’s coaches and bring all transfer activity to a temporary halt. One month for some clubs to realize that they don’t have any money to spend in the first place. One month for Werder Bremen and Borussia Mönchengladbach to negotiate a transfer fee for Marko Marin*. One month to make AC Milan give up on Edin Dzeko.

Things have recently started to pick up pace again though. After ditching Martin Jol and Didi Beiersdorfer to become lone ruler of the Hanseatic Empire, Bernd Hoffmann was in desperate need of star power to appease his subjects – who were plotting an uprising against him only this January. He moved quickly to give Ze Roberto the two year contract Bayern were denying him, before eventually sealing a €9m deal for Twente Enschede’s Eljero Elia. Though, Elia is more a Beiersdorfer farewell present than a Hoffmann coup. And Hoffmann is back in the Netherlands again, this time to meet with Hans Nijland and Henk Veldmate, who happen to be the delegation send by FC Groningen to discuss the transfer fee for their striker Marcus Berg. If both clubs can come to an agreement, Hamburg would complete a hat-trick of signings consisting of the best Bayern midfielder of last season (unofficial), the talent of the year in the Netherlands (official) and the best player of the U21 Euro Championships this summer (official). That’s some ManCity millions well spent. For more Hamburg gossip head over to our Hamburg Offside.

Meanwhile, spending Bayern Munich millions seems to be quite a bit more difficult for Stuttgart. They are sitting on a mountain of cash since early summer and all they got for it was the talented young fullback Stefano Celozzi from Karlsruhe for around €2.5m. All other targets either picked up a serious injury (Helmes/Leverkusen), had to deal with complications from a previous serious injury (Demba Ba/Hoffenheim) or had to deal with their club adding a luxury tax to the transfer fee only billionaire backed clubs should pay (Jovanovic/Liege). In their desperation Stuttgart turned to Real Madrid and lo and behold came to an agreement concerning their no longer wanted striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (€18m + €2m in case of CL qualification). Stuttgart’s good fortunes didn’t stop there, with Europe’s big clubs largely ignoring Real Madrid’s left-over sale. That doesn’t mean Stuttgart is without competition. Sporting director Horst Heldt revealed in an interview that Tottenham seem to be the other serious contender. While not being one of Europe’s elite clubs, Tottenham certainly have something going for them. They’ve copied Real Madrid’s art of wasting huge amounts of money each year to compile squads that eventually fail to live up to the price tag. He would feel right at home again. Stuttgart could offer Champions League football and the honor of training with Jens Lehmann in his final year. Huntelaar is expected to make a decision today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but definitely soon. Should the deal implode Stuttgart then face the challenge to explain to their alternatives like Vagner Love, that they really aren’t their fourth choice but that they wanted him all along actually. Then they will have to work hard not to look too desperate when starting talks with CSKA Moscow.

After ignoring that there was such a thing as a transfer window last year, Bayern Munich have certainly done their homework this time. Half of the deals were already sealed in January actually: Lukas Podolski returns to Cologne (+€10m), Ivica Olic comes from Hamburg (-€0), Anatoliy Tymoshchuk will come to heal the club’s Petersburg trauma (-€11m) and Alexander Baumjohann was hired to fill Podolski’s now empty spot on the bench (-€0). As mentioned, in the summer the club quickly wrapped up the Gomez deal and then bought two players from the Eredevisie (Edson Braafheid for €2m and Danijel Pranjic for €7.7m) to help Louis van Gaal cope with potential homesickness. All in all, it looks like the club has done all the right things. They still want a right-back and maybe a goalkeeper. Chelsea’s Jose Bosingwa had been linked with Bayern for a while, while Manuel Neuer and Bayern enjoyed a brief flirt until Felix Magath returned from his holiday. Then there is also some French winger who wants to join some Spanish club but Bayern so far refuse to listen to any offers. Anyone who is looking to pick up Tim Borowski or Lucio may have better luck. For more Bayern related news you can head over to our Mark van Bommel Offside.

Elsewhere…

Wolfsburg’s efforts to add depth to their squad to handle the extra strain of Champions League football is handled by our new Wolfsburg blogger Chuck over at the Wolfsburg Offside.

Hertha’s efforts to sign players who cost nothing and earn less are routinely handled by our veterain Hertha blogger Abby over at the Hertha Offside.

At some point the new blogger of the Cologne Offside will certainly also tell you how the club intends to fix that gaping hole between the defense and offense – called midfield by clubs that have one.

Hoffenheim’s extensive scouting database, Felix Magath’s magic transfer touch, the latest Swiss imports and all the signings that aren’t happening at Bremen will be dealt with in another post for sure.

* somewhere between €8m to €9m FYI.

For everyone else it’s season 46 episode 34 of the Bundesliga. We’ve already been served 2970 minutes high on excitement and low on answers – the latter will have to be packed into the upcoming 90 minutes. Who’s going to win the title, who will qualify for the Champions and Europa League, who is going down, what is the smoke monster and what lies behind Felix Magath’s wry smile? The league’s script writers have promised us answers to at least half of these questions.

Hannover 0-5 Wolfsburg. Except for the sell out crowd there was nothing really derby-ish about this game (and then, the last match at home usually tends to be a sell out anyway). Hannover fielded a reshuffled team, with 39 year old defender Michael Tarnat given his farewell match, and was consequently ripped apart by the best strike duo of this Bundesliga season. Wolfsburg now only need a draw in their game against Bremen to secure their first Bundesliga title. Can you expect Bremen to put up a fight and possibly repeat their 5-2 DFB-Pokal victory over the wolves despite being in between two cup finals? Well, they were easily beaten 3-1 by Karlsruhe this weekend – make up your own mind… but stranger things have happened.

Hoffenheim 2-2 Bayern. Hoffenheim have overall more quality than Hannover and they were ready to give Bayern a run for their money – e.g. they didn’t give Boubacar Sanogo a farewell match. In fact Hoffenheim wanted to win this game and take revenge for last year’s cruel defeat. They had to settle for a draw though, which will still feel like a defeat for Bayern, who in theory could end up winning the title next Saturday, or drop down to fourth and play in the second tier European competition for the second time in three seasons…

Stuttgart 2-0 Cottbus. And here is the team that will decide Bayern’s fate and who themselves could still win the title or drop all the way down to fourth. A solid performance was enough to overcome Cottbus. Mario Gomez was rested and only had a short twenty minutes cameo, which was enough time for him to set up the second goal.

Hertha 0-0 Schalke. Marko Pantelic scored a perfectly valid goal which was ruled out by the referee and since close games are Hertha’s trademark this season, the game ended 0-0 / the capital’s title hopes. Hertha fans could chose to read a lot into this match, and how this is typical Hertha style choking and apart from being wrong, they would also miss out on the silver lining. A win against Karlsruhe will guarantee Hertha a third place finish, with chances to go second, should Bayern and Stuttgart draw their match. A 63 point haul to date is their best ever Bundesliga result already.

Lucien Favre has some work to do to refocus and motivate his team though. The reaction to the Schalke game was a textbook case of the volatile professional football mercenary team spirit, with Voronin criticizing Favre, Simunic criticizing his team mates and Hoeness unsurprisingly criticizing anyone but himself.

Hamburg 0-1 Cologne. Just a few weeks ago Hamburg could still win the triple. Martin Jol was coach of the year candidate and courted by Bayern. Didi Bayersdorfer was a transfer magician with profit margins unheard of by even the most reckless bankers and Piotr Trochowski kept saying how he is ready for a really big club after every other half decent match he played. 28 days and Werder Bremen later, Hamburg’s season has completely collapsed with a super-poor home performance against Cologne being the icing on the cake. The DFB-Pokal and UEFA Cup were bonus trophies, but qualification for European football was the club’s official goal for this season, which now is in very serious doubt. Apart from the need to somehow raise their own game again and beat Frankfurt, they also need Dortmund to slip up against Mönchengladbach.

Dortmund 6-0 Bielefeld. And can you see this Dortmund team drop points against Mönchengladbach? Well, you could make an argument that Gladbach are a better side than Bielefeld…

Leverkusen 5-0 Mönchengladbach. Marginally better side really. It’s amazing and embarrassing that a 5-0 defeat still helped Mönchengladbach win a one goal advantage over Bielefeld. Bielefeld now have to win their game against Hannover and overcome a five goal deficit (four goals actually, but Gladbach scored more goals overall and thus would still be ranked ahead of Bielefeld) and hope Dortmund beats Gladbach. Based on Dortmund’s form, they’ll probably just have to make sure to beat Hannover and let Dortmund do all the goal scoring…

There’s a mini chance for some title decisive drama and a big chance for drama regarding relegation, Europa League and Champions League and I hope to get a liveblog ready to cover it all.

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%