Hi and welcome to the new Bundesliga Blog at The Offside
By: Jan | May 11th, 2007So, I guess it’s a good idea to use this sort of post to tell you a little bit about myself and the plans that I have for the latest member in the The Offside family.
My name is Jan, I’m from Germany, Düsseldorf to be more precise. The city is home to Fortuna Düsseldorf, a former German champion and Bundesliga team that is now playing in the third division (Regionalliga) with no hope of being promoted this season. The city is also sporting a mostly unused multi-use World Cup ready stadium that wasn’t selected for the World Cup. I personally chose to be an 1. FC Köln (FC Cologne) supporter. 1. FC Köln is a former German champion and Bundesliga team that is now playing in the second division (2. Bundesliga) with no hope of being promoted this season. The city of Cologne is also sporting a frequently used World Cup ready stadium that was selected for the World Cup. Cologne and Düsseldorf share a deep rivalry especially when it comes to carnival, sports and beer. I have been living pretty well with the contradiction this paragraph is implying.
While I may point the finger to spectacular developments in Germany’s lower divisions, the Bundesliga and from time to time the German national team will get most of the attention. What can you expect? Well, I’ve been closely following football coverage and punditism for a while now and I’m intrigued to try it out myself. Meaning that I may not be able to resist some of the formulas that make talking about football so much fun like predicting the outcome of a match after the match has ended, jumping from one premature conclusion to the next, glorifying and slagging off players and managers in a matter of weeks, never justifying false predictions and always raking in the praise if something I say incidentally comes true. And I’m hoping that you will join the fun with your comments.
Also: don’t hesitate to leave me a comment or send a mail to bundesliga[at]theoffside[dot]com if you have any wishes or suggestions regarding topics I should cover on this blog.
Category: Miscellaneous
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Comments
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Welcome to the Offside, Jan
The Bundesliga is the league I’m most unfamiliar with, but I’ve always wanted to learn more about it. I’ll be looking forward to your posts!
Posted from
United States
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Hi Inara!
Thanks a lot for the kind welcome.:-) And btw: great rant on your Lyon blog! Will probably carbon copy it in a few days when I write about Bayern Munichs plan to renew their team for the next season. I just need to replace Lyon with Munich and Ligue 1 with Bundesliga and I should be fine.;-)Posted from
Germany -
Welcome, Jan. I’m really glad someone’s covering Bundesliga now. It’s a great league.
Posted from
United States -
Yay, a Bundesliga blog. The Bundesliga is one of my favorite leagues. I really like Borussia Dortmund. Good luck!
Posted from
United States -
Oooh, I was wondering when a Bundesliga blog would pop up.
Posted from
United States -
Hey Jan, welcome to the Offside from your neighbour to the west, France. We’ve pretty much got all the big 5 covered now! Woo!
Posted from
Canada -
Best of luck with the new blog, Jan. The Bundesliga title race has been a cracker — and still is, as I type this a couple of hours after the penultimate round of matches — so I’m sure you can have some fun with it.
Posted from
Sweden -
’bout time, haha.
Posted from
United States -
Yay!!! Thank you for covering the Bundesliga. It’s my favorite league.
Posted from
Singapore -
Again, thanks a lot for the great response and good wishes both from fellow Offside bloggers and hopefully potential regular readers.;-) To Kevin: yes, it’s been a highly entertaining season this year. I actually read your warmhearted Bundesliga “puff piece” over at your blog just a few days ago.:) Something I’ll come back to for a little feature I’m planning.
Posted from
Germany -
Yay! Looking forward to reading this. It’s hard to find good English-language news about the Bundesliga, and even harder to find someone who blogs about it in English.
Posted from
United States -
I agree with you, Juliet. In fact, I hardly get news about the Bundesliga unless I search for it on the Internet, which is what I do every week.
Posted from
Singapore -
Yay, finally a Bundesliga blog! (I’m slow and didn’t notice it until today.)
Posted from
United Kingdom -
I’m very excited about this blog - to me, the Bundesliga is the most interesting of the big European leagues these days and it’ll be great to learn more about it.
Posted from
United States -
Welcome Jan! While I disagree (respectfully, of course) with Tom - La Liga is the greatest! - there is no doubt that the Bundesliga is extremely fun.
Just a question: Why is it that there is only 1 team from Berlin represented in the Bundesliga. This is definitely different than all the other European leagues I can think of (London has like 80 teams or something, Madrid has 3, Paris has at least 2, Rome has 2) and that intrigues me.
Posted from
United States -
Hey Isaiah,
this is a great question and something I’ve been asking myself as well. It’s not just that there is only one club from Berlin in the Bundesliga it’s also that this club hasn’t really achieved anything and e.g. won’t play internationally next season. I haven’t looked much into the history books yet to assemble a proper theory. One thing that probably played or still plays a role is Berlin’s historic background with the city being split into East and West during the cold war. Berlin has only really started to develop as a metropole after the reunification. But I’ll look into it a bit more to probably put together a little blog entry.
Posted from
Germany -
Die Bundesliga is a great league but not as good as Spain or Italian, but better then the english they just have 5 good teams
Posted from
United States -
It seems to me that the only league that has really proven to have some depth is Spain atm. The other leagues (incl. Italy) don’t have a higher number of good teams than the EPL. Just roughly judging by the UEFA Cup/Champions League performances. In case of the Bundesliga you have the problem that a lot of potentially great teams don’t show any consistency over the run of a couple of seasons. E.g. Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dortmund and Berlin. Stuttgart and Hamburg sold key players from their great teams and as a result did not manage to repeat their success. Dortmund and Berlin suffered from bad management and resulting debts. Other teams with a great fan base, history and infrastructure have been in constant decline. Borussa Mönchengladbach has been relegated and FC Cologne is still playing in the 2. Bundesliga. Those are big time underachievers atm. (probably add Frankfurt to the mix) I think or hope that the people in charge learned from their mistakes. Stuttgart for example is very keen to keep their current squad together despite the fact that some players have caught the attention of some big European clubs. Time will tell. The Bundesliga has definitely more potential than it is showing right now.
Posted from
Germany
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