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

20 years ago the Berlin Wall fell. Depending on who you ask it was either because of David Hasselhof, an accident or a peaceful revolution of the East German people.

One football fan was particularly looking forward to this event, after cheering on the “wrong” football teams for over two decades. Helmut Klopfleisch from then-East Berlin became an enthusiastic Hertha and Bayern fan in the 1960s and came to their games whenever they played teams from the Eastern Bloc. His fandom landed him and his family in hot water with the East German regime. The above video gives you a short portrait of one of the bravest Bundesliga fans out there.

The video has English subtitles. If they don’t show, click on the button in the bottom right corner and activate them.

And in case you aren’t quite up to speed with the East German regime acronyms mentioned in the video, here is a quick rundown:
FDJ. The not so Freie Deutsche Jugend – Free German Youth. Every regime needs a youth movement, to raise fresh Nazis, Communists or whatever. The FDJ incidentally shared Hertha’s club colors, allowing Helmut Klopfleisch to create some unique Hertha fan gear.
Stasi. STAatsSIcherheit – State Security. Because a good youth system alone is not enough in a totalitarian regime, it’s also mandatory to have an effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agency to put citizens under surveillance.
GDR. What is commonly referred to as East Germany in the anglophone world, was officially called the German Democratic Republic. West Germany is the Federal Republic of Germany. Is, as in: today’s Germany is still the Federal Republic of Germany, just with a bunch of extra federal states added. And just like Germans don’t use the nickname “Mannschaft” for the German national team, they also didn’t refer to each other’s country as West or East Germany either.

In 1974 Gerd Müller succeeded where Michael Ballack had failed in 2002 and won the Bundesliga, Champions Cup (Champions League) and the World Cup. On his way to the trophy hattrick Müller scored an amazing 30 goals in 34 Bundesliga matches, 8 goals in 10 Champions Cup matches and 5 goals in 4 DFB Pokal matches for his club Bayern Munich. The above YouTube playlist compiles 26 of his Bundesliga and 5 of his Champions Cup goals into one easy to watch package.

Playlist
Müller vs Hertha BSC (Goal #3, 25th August 1973)
Müller vs Schalke 04 (Goals #4 to 7, 8th September 1973)
Müller vs Bremen (Goal #8, 15th September 1973)
Müller vs Kaiserslautern (Goals #11 and 12, 20th October 1973)
Müller vs Dresden (Champions Cup, Goal #3, 24th October 1973)
Müller vs Dresden (Champions Cup, Goal #4, 7th November 1973)
Müller vs Hamburg (Goals #13 to 15, 10th November 1973)
Müller vs Mönchengladbach (Goal #16, 8th December 1973)
Müller vs Fortuna Cologne (Goals #17 to 19, 12th January 1974)
Müller vs Hertha BSC (Goal #20, 26th January 1974)
Müller vs Schalke 04 (Goal #21 to 23, 9th February 1974)
Müller vs Hannover (Goal #24, 9th March 1974)
Müller vs Frankfurt (Goal #25, 16th March 1974)
Müller vs FC Cologne (Goal #26, 23rd March 1974)
Müller vs Duisburg (Goal #27, 30th March 1974)
Müller vs Stuttgart (Goal #28, 20th April 1974)
Müller vs Ujpest Dozsa (Champions Cup, Goal #6, 24th April 1974)
Müller vs Bochum (Goal #29, 27th April 1974)
Müller vs Offenbach (Goal #30, 11th May 1974)
Müller vs Atletico Madrid (Champions Cup Final, Goal #7 and 8, 17th May 1974)

The two goals against Madrid certainly qualify as “saving the best for last”. Or as the video description puts it: “(…) both goals must count among the finest ever scored in a European Cup final. “

Bayern Munich fans are certainly not in a particularly good mood at the moment. The situation in the Bundesliga is far from hopeless but still disappointing, while Bayern will need a miracle of sorts to progress in the Champions League. Thus, some fans may be in disbelieve, some may question the coach or the players, others blame the transfer policy and a few probably just desperately hope for Ribery to return and make it all right again. But, they are not rioting – yet. That didn’t stop Bayern from taking some precautionary measures though. A warning, a message of intent, sort of. It’s also a predictably bad spot for Bayern fans to curiously watch, what looks like, a training session with three or four players running up and down the pitch at the Säbener Straße.

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

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.

• Louis van Gaal is not a god. He’s a jazz singer. (YouTube)
• Football’s winning formula revealed: give the ball to the other team and lose all your challenges. (Ballspiel)
• Mainz 05 are starting to build a global fanbase. Current fan count: 1. (The Adventures of Peter James)
• Of Cevapčići and other famous Balkan imports in Germany. (The Outsiders’ Edge)
• Stuttgart hit rock bottom. (Guardian)
• Stuttgart hit rock bottom harder. (Some People are on the Pitch)

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.