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)

Hoffenheim’s Vedad Ibisevic, Carlos Eduardo and Luiz Gustavo put on their football boots.

(Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

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)

Hoffenheim and Bayern. The Kaiser and the egocentric billionaire who likes to play golf with the Kaiser can rejoice, as Bayern and Hoffenheim got their season back on track. Three wins in a row for both clubs moved them back to the upper regions of the table. After falling behind at Gladbach and not finding an opening goal at home against Nuremberg in the first 45 minutes, both clubs might still want to work on their first half performances.

Jens Lehmann. Is here to save the day and not the ball.

Oktoberfest. It’s the time of the year again for all you Bayern fans to pitch perfect your yodeling, ask Brüno for some fashion advice, pay over the odds for a beer and rethink whether all this glory hunting is really worth going through all this?

Rock Bottom. (/ɹɒk/ /ˈbɒtəm/), English, Noun, (idiomatic) The very lowest possible level. Synonyms:

1. Hertha Berlin
2. VfB Stuttgart (approval pending)

On top. (/ɒn/ /tɒp/), English, Preposition, (idiomatic) In a dominant position. Synonyms:

1. Hamburger SV
2. Bayer Leverkusen

Beardwatch. The spectacle of watching a young man trying to grow a beard against all odds – not much beard growth, blond hair, tied to scoring goals – is over. Stefan Kiessling failed to score against Werder Bremen. The Bundesliga will be a poorer place without his golden stubles.

316. 316 Bundesliga coaches had been fired before Bochum gave Marcel Koller the sack. At least 316 coaches will be fired after Bochum gave Marcel Koller the sack. Marcel Koller could even be one of those future 316.

Please send your fake takeover applications to admin@nufc.co.uk and the real ones to daryl[at]theoffside[dot]com.

Update: Just as I write this post the Borussia Dortmund Offside goes up for auction as well. If you are more the romantic type who can do without the successful and without the wealthy then this is a blog for you.

Update 2: I should have taken a little look around before writing this as there are even more team blogs available: Leverkusen Offside, Muklenblacklen Offside and Eintracht Frankfurt Offside. Blog for two of them and we’ll give you the third one for free.

Update 3: I think I see the pattern emerging, so it’s easier to just say that the Hamburg Offside, Cologne Offside, Bayern Offside, Bochum Offside, St. Pauli Offside and Hertha Offside are the only team blogs currently not looking for a new blogger.

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%