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.

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.

Wolfsburg. You are never too old for an impressive Champions League debut. Grafite (30) scored a hat-trick and became only (or already?) the sixth player to do so on his debut. Each of his goals really showed off his versatility as well. Cool finishing from a counter attack for the first goal. Winning a joke penalty and calmly converting it for the second. Killing the game with a great strike under pressure in the box for the third. The match itself was a bit underwhelming though. Moscow deserve a mention for playing the overall more polished football. Wolfsburg deserve credit for having simply more overall quality to win the game nonetheless. I still have the feeling that Armin Veh is step by step deconstructing Felix Magath’s title winning team. First he had this idea of a slick passing game, which so far resulted in games, in which the other teams pass the ball better and more often but no longer have to fear Wolfsburg’s counter attacks. Now he switched from a 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3, making Edin Dzeko look uncomfortable on the wings and Misimovic less of a brilliant playmaker on his new position in midfield.

Bayern. You are never too young for an impressive Champions League debut either. Though, in case of Thomas Müller this debut took place last season already against Sporting Lisbon, where he put the finishing touches on a 7-1 demolition. This season he put the finishing touches on a 3-0 victory over Haifa, where Bayern needed too much patience and too much Butt in goal for my taste. Head over to the Bayern Offside for match highlights.

Stuttgart. 60% possession, 11:2 shots on goal and a 1-0 half time lead against Glasgow Rangers were enough to make Stuttgart incredibly nervous, passive and overall rubbish in the second half. The resulting 1-1 draw ended up being rather fortunate for the Swabians. Badmouthing Thomas Hitzelsperger is one of my favorite past times over at the Germany Worldcupblog so this is getting old a bit but: as long as Hleb has the excuse, that his buttock pain keeps him from being fully fit, Hitzelsperger is one of the players who really should run the Stuttgart midfield. And by running I mean forward not backwards. He’s supposedly the captain of the team. A screaming Jens Lehmann who steals the opposition player’s shoes and headbands only gets you so far. For the full story of those two halves head over to the Stuttgart Offside.

Hamburg. When Hamburg are good, they are very very good. When Hamburg are bad, they are very very bad. In their match against Rapid Vienna they were very very bad and deservedly lost 3-0 in front of 50000 fans in Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadion. At least it was against another Bundesliga side – from an admittedly cute and tiny Bundesliga. I wonder how often these mood swings will pop up at inopportune moments, to make sure Hamburg remain without a title once again? Offload all your fury, disappointment or schadenfreude over at the Hamburg Offside’s rant box.

Berlin. 13.454 fans and a 1-1 draw against the Latvian champions. This should bring fuzzy warm feelings to panicking and demoralized Hertha fans. Lousy European nights are one of the few things that Hertha could preserve this season. What Hertha definitely couldn’t preserve was their defensive stability, or their ability to compensate injuries or an offense which was just about good enough to get the result from a late counter attack. Hertha lost Jaroslav Drobny in this match, so their magic defensive triangle is now down to the not so magical Arne Friedrich. This weekend’s game against Freiburg almost feels like a relegation play-off match now.

Bremen. More possession, more chances, more goals. After 55 minutes battered Bundesliga fans were seemingly looking at a top to bottom professional job by Bremen. Until Nacional Funchal equalized inside 10 minutes. Claudio Pizzaro eventually made sure Bremen got all three points. And let’s be honest: a Werder defense that doesn’t concede a goal or two is not really a Werder defense. Head over to the Werder Offside for a proper match report.

For more Europa League head over to our, uh, UEFA Cup Offside.
For more Champions League coverage head over to our Champions League Offside.

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.

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.