Bundesliga

By: Jan | 4 Comments

Those were 150.000 Euros not well spent for Wolfsburg. Felix Magath loaned Aliaksandr Hleb from Barcelona for a special €100k per game and €50k per goal fee. Thus, Magath’s total expenses for Saturday’s trip to Dortmund added up to €150k, not counting the damage Dortmund’s fresh in form offense caused all afternoon. Dortmund aren’t quite in Bayern Munich home game territory, but they are finally starting to put away more of all those chances they are creating.

Lucien Favre returned to Berlin with no hard feelings and one Marco Reus. Michael Preetz still had sore feelings left over from Lucien Favre’s awkwardly strange farewell press conference. And he made those feelings known to the local tabloids. Lucien Favre however, kept only the good memories, and felt like returning to some good old acquaintances. One of the bad memories he didn’t keep, was when he didn’t sign Marco Reus for a bargain €1m from RW Ahlen. Reus signed for Gladbach instead and now added a match-winning brace against Hertha to the good memories Lucien Favre will keep from his Gladbach days.
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By: Jan | Add Comments

Bayern home games have a fascination of their own. For the past couple of seasons I developed the habit of watching the first half of a FC Barcelona game to cap off a hectic and unpredictable day of Bundesliga action. I did it less for the uncertainty of the result, but the uncertainty of how many goals Barca could score before the break. All the fluent passing and individual class on display was easy on the eye as well. I guess I could now just as well watch the first half of a Bayern home game instead.

It’s a league of one-man teams out there. Bayern have successfully put their reliance on Arjen Robben’s cut-inside-and-score-moments-of-brilliance behind them this season. Meanwhile, a lot of other Bundesliga teams revel in the joy of having a go to guy to win a match for them. Whether it’s Claudio Pizarro at Bremen, the outstanding Marco Reus at Gladbach, the surprisingly consistent Lukas Podolski at Cologne, Mario Mandzukic at Wolfsburg, Cisse at Freiburg. I could go on. It’s great to have so many great players spread evenly across the league. Unfortunately it’s bound to be a temporary luxury. Marco Reus has already been linked with each and every bigger club in Europe, and, of course, Bayern Munich. Lukas Podolski could be motivated to finally prove his qualities at the highest level. Cisse is with one feet in the Premier League already. An aging Pizarro hasn’t yet decided about his future. Another fresh cycle of talent scouting and grooming is looming.
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By: Jan | 8 Comments

Maybe Dortmund just weren’t angry enough. Following through with this theory, I can’t tell you what made them so angry last season. But they certainly felt pretty good about themselves, and their chances in the Champions League, coming out of the summer break. After losing to Olympiacos midweek (declaring bankruptcy, Euro crisis, any Greece related pun you like), they had to face up to the bleak and realistic possibility of spending next year out of the Euro zone (sorry). By all accounts and attempts of explanation for Saturday’s title-winning-season-remembrance performance against Cologne, they were very, very angry. Cologne, on the other hand, were impossibly bad. Or rather, they played just as you would expect them to play, after winning their last game. Still, if Dortmund can conserve some of that rage, we could have a title race after all.

Bayern suffer a series of unfortunate events in Hannover. Again. A Bayern defender loosing his nerve and getting sent off. A freak goal. Hannover hanging in there and running out not all undeserved winners. For Bayern it was the story of last season’s trip to the AWD Arena. It was the story of this season’s trip to the AWD Arena. Hannover’s reward, like last season, was a move up to the Champions League places. And with one extra Champions League spot generously donated by Serie A, they have a better chance to hold on to it this time around.
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By: Jan | 4 Comments

Bayern signing Jupp Heynckes was the best thing to happen to Toni Kroos. The prototypical wunderkind to come out of Germany’s reformed youth system, needed Heynckes to pop up at Leverkusen, to finally play his long awaited breakthrough season in the Bundesliga. Now that the two are reunited at Bayern, he could well establish himself at the top of German football, both at Bayern and the German national team. Toni Kroos played another excellent game against Napoli, but had to settle for a draw, as the other players on the pitch, on both sides, weren’t interested enough to play an excellent game as well.

Jürgen Klopp can’t do Europe. He got knocked out in the first round of the UEFA Cup with Mainz and Dortmund. He didn’t make it past the group stage of the Europa League with Dortmund. And now it looks increasingly likely the same will happen to him in the Champions League. To his credit, he had the underdog excuse at Mainz. But at Dortmund his otherwise well drilled defense, continuously has decisive lapses of concentration. Something his wasteful offense struggles to compensate. Let’s hope for both Klopp and his young team, that this is still part of the learning curve. One that is at its’ low point, following the deserved defeat at the hands of Olympiacos.

Bernd Leno, a bit of experience and Andre Schürrle can get you a long way. And Robin Dutt out of trouble. The under fire coach witnessed his team giving him a clear vote of no confidence in the first half against Valencia. At least, that’s what everybody in the stadium and at home in front of the TV thought they were seeing. Valencia played Leverkusen off the park in even more devastating fashion than Gladbach last weekend. They outshot Leverkusen 13 to 0 in the first 40 minutes of the match. But luckily, and thanks to Bernd Leno, only scored one. This opened the door for the unlikely to happen. Everybody witnessed something unheard of at “Neverkusen”: a gutsy comeback, orchestrated by Michael Ballack’s experience and class and Andre Schürrle’s and Sidney Sam’s individual quality. This was followed by something seemingly even unlikelier: a clear vote of confidence by the team for Robin Dutt – when everybody stormed to the coach for excessive and aggressive hugging. This should give Dutt some breathing space, until Leverkusen lose their next match.
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• Niklas Wildhagen recalled his traumatic experience, when Otto Rehagel left Bremen for Bayern. (Regista)
• Jonny Eyres looked at how Bundesliga promotion hopefuls Fortuna Düsseldorf slowly worked their way back up the divisions. (In Bed With Maradona)
• Saurabh talked about the growing impact of Japanese players in the Bundesliga. (Four Added On)
• Nick Amies, with a little help from Bundesliga Fanatic and the Hamburg Offside, wrote about the challenges awaiting Thorsten Fink at Hamburg. (Deutsche Welle)
• Ian Holyman analyzed Markus Babbel’s Hertha, before they were brushed aside in 13 minutes. (Bundesliga on Eurosport 2)
• Bundesliga TV picked the weekends five best goals. (bundesliga.de)
• Uli Hesse picked up on the weekend’s fuzzy refereeing in the Bundesliga. (ESPN Soccernet)
• Raphael Honigstein wrote about the unassuming renaissance of Stuttgart. (Guardian)

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This feels like the only fitting way. Put the ball in the back of the net yourself, if no other team is able to. Holger Badstuber put it there – under pressure – to Napoli’s credit. Philipp Lahm failed to deal with Maggio – to Badstuber’s credit. And so Manuel Neuer’s record run – across all competitions – ended after 1147 minutes. The game ended in a drab 1-1 draw after 93 minutes. The referee missed a handball by Schweinsteiger, that would have been a penalty. The referee didn’t miss a handball by Cannavaro, but Gomez missed the penalty. All square in the end.

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In absence of any real competition, Bayern turn to the record books. Manuel Neuer is still in the hunt for Timo Hildebrand’s Bundesliga record. Bayern are on a good way to break their own record of conceding the fewest goals a season. They might even try besting their own record of scoring the most goals. Winning the most games, winning the Bundesliga with the most points, biggest points gap etc. etc. etc. There is still a lot to play for Bayern. And since they only needed 13 minutes to dispatch Hertha, they had 77 minutes left to think up what other crazy records they could break as well. While this is all very exciting for Bayern, for the sake of the Bundesliga, it wouldn’t hurt, if the other teams treated Bayern with a little less respect and would care to show up once in a while. At least try.

Bayern Dusel turns pandemic. Like a flu it spreads across the league. Borussia Dortmund, besieged by Werder Bremen, escaped with all three points. Augsburg were under similar pressure in Mainz, had a goal against them ruled out and won a late penalty to bag their first ever Bundesliga win. Wolfsburg needed a late penalty as well, a helping hand from Diego Benaglio and Nuremberg’s awful finishing to climb up the table. Bayer Leverkusen still can’t fully comprehend how they left the Borussia Park with a point, while avoiding a thrashing at the hands of Marco Reus. Hamburg needed a rare penalty miss by Cisse and a rare dose of good fortune to close the gap to the Champions League spots. Cologne, apart from a phenomenal Podolski performance, had to thank the referee for making an awful mess of the active/passive offside rule in their favor. Congratulations to Bayern, Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern for actually deserving their victories.

Stupid football rules ruin games. The referees get the blame – or beer showers and 8 balls – but they are often slaves to fuzzy guidelines. Sending off a goalkeeper and awarding a penalty is the type of double blow that can ruin games. Especially, when the referee makes up for the harsh call, by handing the other team a joke red card and penalty as well. As happened in the game between Schalke and Kaiserslautern. The active/passive offside rule has denied Mainz and Hanover legit goals, while Dortmund’s second goal stood, despite probably being the only one, where you could make a case, that the goalkeeper got distracted. Good news is, the Kaiser himself is on a mission to right the wrongs.
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A group of Cologne fans hijacked the Podbielskiallee in Berlin-Dahlem to honor their icon.

Not that Lukas Podolski’s performance against Hertha as such warranted naming a street after him, but it was part of a bigger picture. One that could ultimately lead us to world peace. The group calls itself “Lilian Laslandes” and left a written claim of responsibility at the scene (The McKenna Schreiben*), in which they outlined their philosophy and demands:
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Schalke fans might want to skip this. Everybody else, who has seen enough of Bayern players in Lederhosen and WAGs in Dirndls, can skip this as well.

It’s Oktoberfest time in Munich again and Bayern paid a visit. As they do every year. And either Bayern are already operating on a level, where a 0-0 draw away at Hoffenheim equals a horrible defeat, or they really would have rather spend their day someplace else.

Prove positive that you can have alcohol without fun. That is until the team’s three true Bavarians Bastian Schweinsteiger, Philipp Lahm (the one hidden under the big hat) and Thomas Müller get the party started…

Later, things got a bit more interesting, when Chelsea’s Didier Drogba checked by with his “boyfriend” to support the Manuel Neuer Kids Foundation.

via 101GreatGoals