Anthar Yahia scored the solitary goal against Egypt in the 40th minute. You’ve got a say, a central defender doesn’t get to score such a cracking goal all too often. The fact that it sent Algeria to South Africa was just the cherry on top.

Zlatko Dedic’s goal came in the 44th minute and helped Slovenia to equalize on aggregate (2-2) and get in front on away goals. Russia did too little in the first half, and when they were ready to up the pressure they lost Kerzhakov to a stupid red card. Another red for Zhirkov in the 90th minute capped off a miserable night for Russia and Guus Hiddink. Hats off to Slovenia though.

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.

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.

 
In case of any other goalkeeper we might ask the question what the hell he is doing out there. In case of Jens Lehmann we are thankful that he is indeed out there doing things; that he extended his contract for one more year last season.

VfB Stuttgart’s sense of humor ended though when Jens Lehmann’s reaction to his blunder consisted of a trip over to Munich to the Oktoberfest for the odd beer and sausage.

Quick recap: in a matter of just about 14 days we’ve gone from this to this and finally arrived here.

Now, the problem with beautiful friendships and/or love in football is, that it all usually only lasts until the transfer window opens again. Unless of course you suddenly also want to extent your contract.

Even by football standards all of this doesn’t make a lot of sense.

There is much to like about the DFB-Pokal.

First of all, its’ format contrasts nicely with all other season long competitions. A pure knockout tournament. 90 minutes minimum. 120 minutes and penalty shootouts if necessary. No draws. No rematches. No second legs. If you are the away team, live with it. If you have a bad day, it’s goodbye.

Then there is what the English like to call the “romance of the cup” and what less romantic Germans file under the saying “the cup has its’ own rules”. What these rules are? No German really knows. What these rules do? Help underdogs to famous upsets, so that the English can have their romance.

And finally, regular league football doesn’t give you 120th minute buzzer beaters.

Famous 45
Sometimes asking a 6th division amateur side to knock out a global player with €300m+ in yearly revenue is just a little too much. Holding Bayern Munich to a scoreless draw in the first half, only conceding three and scoring a consolation goal in the second half, was still good enough for probably the proudest chapter in SpVgg Neckarelz’s 88 year long history. And if said global player can only rack up in excess of €100m a year, and if you are a freshly promoted 4th division side, then even a 1-0 lead at half time is possible – as SG Sonnenhof Großaspach proved against Stuttgart (1-4).

Heroic 90
Going a little down the Bundesliga rankings and a little up the 4th division rankings and we end up with the first of two giant killings of the first round. Eintracht Trier, coached by all dancing, drinking and smoking former German international Mario Basler, knocked out Hannover 96 3-1. Hannover took the lead in the first half and looked modestly comfortable. In the second half Hannover then lost control of the match and Trier deservedly turned the score around. Following Hannover’s modestly successful attempts to equalize, Trier killed the game with a counter attack in the 88th minute. The only positive Hannover’s coach can take from this match is, that he still has his job.

Epic 120
Different to Jörn Andersen – former coach of FSV Mainz 05. Following his former club’s defeat to 4th division side VfB Lübeck, Andersen unsuccessfully tried to argue how his 120 minutes are better than Hannover’s 90 minutes, during 3 hours worth of crisis talks with the management. The management then said, that there had been a rift developing between him and the team and management over the past couple of weeks already and then Andersen was gone.

While not a giant killing, SC Preußen Münster’s game against Hertha (1-3) is at least worth a mention. Not because 4th division side Preußen Münster forcing Hertha to extratime and almost to penalties is such an amazing feat. Even die hard Preußen Münster fans must admit that holding or forcing Hertha to anything in the DFB-Pokal is not really that special. But given that Berlin are the antithesis to cup competitions, it’s a bit of a surprise that Hertha are in the second round.

St. Pauli’s days of mythical DFB-Pokal runs during which they claimed the scalps of illustrious clubs such as Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen are also over. Welcome to being forced to extra time by 5th division side FC Villingen – you belong to the big boys now.

Transcendental 119:57
One out of three in picking the game of the round should see me comfortably compete with the chimp hired by GolTV to plan their Bundesliga schedule. Five minutes into the match between Fortuna Düsseldorf and Hamburg SV and I feared I could be drawing a blank yet again. Fortuna’s coach Norbert Meier had promised that his team won’t just sit back and defend, but attack and punish Hamburg instead. The way Bruno Labaddia’s side sliced through the Düsseldorf defense and confirmed their excellent pre-season form in the fourth minute, this looked like a very bad idea. In the end though, it was just a matter of the football gods forgetting to press the button labelled “own rules”. They hastily made up for it, presumably frantically pressing the button three or four times, resulting in a first half performance by Fortuna Düsseldorf, that would be every Werder Bremen fan’s wet dream. All of a sudden Fortuna started to send one smart through ball after the other through a disastrous Hamburg defense, while giving a lesson on how to quickly switch from defense to offense and back again. A little exaggeration on my side maybe – yet, at half time Düsseldorf should have been 4-1 up without exaggerating anything, but could still take an encouraging 2-1 lead into the break. Hamburg eventually gained a better hold on to the match and reduced Düsseldorf’s attacking threat, but had rather little to offer going forward, except for a long range shot by Trochowski, which came out of the blue, but leveled the score nonetheless and sent the game into extra time. It was up to Trochowski again, to change the course of the game. A penalty early in the first half of extra time put Hamburg into the lead once more and the game on its’ way to the climax. Fortuna’s attacks became more desperate. Hamburg’s counter attacks came ever closer until the clock stood at 119m:57s.

Unless you are very disciplined, you probably took a peak at the video already, and if not: you may now.

That was the last bit of good fortuna for Fortuna though and they had to settle for an English styled glorious and romantic defeat, rather than a clinical and efficient German penalty job well done. Most Fortuna fans won’t remember anyway, as they probably lost their consciousness after 119m:58s.

From our Team Blogs

St. Pauli Offside – FC St. Pauli takes extra time to advance in the cup
Dortmund Offside – Deutscher Fußball-bund Pokal: SpVgg Weiden
Hertha Offside – Things That Hertha Berlin Are Not
Bayern Offside – Pokal Preview
Leverkusen Offside – Derdiyok saves face for the squad