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

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

A few years ago Toni Kroos was hailed as the next big thing in German football. He won the best player award at the 2007 U17 World Cup, joined Bayern Munich and was promised the #10 jersey. Far from claiming the shirt he instead commuted between Bayern’s bench and the reserves. Meanwhile other next big things popped up, won youth tournaments, first team starting spots and call ups to the German national team. Kroos’ young career came to halt and an Internet fake took his spot in the Times’ list of best young football talents. In January, he eventually joined Bayer Leverkusen on loan to gain some much needed match practice. He did OK so far. This season he is slowly establishing himself in Bayer’s starting eleven – scoring and assisting two goals. His second goal was this wonderful volley in this weekend’s 2-2 draw between Schalke and Leverkusen. A quick reminder of his undoubted potential.

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.

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)

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.

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)

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.