10 Things we learned from Matchday 34
By: Jan |
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1. Nuremberg complete relegation double.
Schalke scored two goals. Schalke almost scored two own goals. In between Nuremberg squandered their chances, like they squandered their chances all season. Eventually those were Nuremberg’s final 90 minutes in the Bundesliga.
Nuremberg are now in sole possession of two less than flattering relegation records. They won the relegation double, by being relegated as both champions (1969) and cup winners (2008), and they were relegated a record seventh time from the Bundesliga.
Given the quality of their squad, what will follow is a silly season where Nuremberg’s dead body is served as main course. Robert Vittek has already been linked with promoted billionarios SAP Hoffenheim. Hamburg’s preference for defenders sees them linked with Javier Pinola. Zvjezdan Misimovic could seek the grey environments of Wolfsburg to play in the UEFA Cup. Just to name three.
2. Stuttgart should just give up buying players.
Stuttgart did what Hamburg did last season and clinched a last minute Intertoto Cup spot, to savour an otherwise disappointing season. Responsible for this result were Mario Gomez senior (22 years old) and Mario Gomez junior (18 years old and also known as Manuel Fischer). Mario Gomez senior converted a penalty, after a foul on Mario Gomez junior. Then Mario Gomez junior scored a goal of his own to make it 2-1 for Stuttgart. The match ended 2-2 thanks to Stuttgart’s shaky defence.
Gomez senior and junior are both home grown players. Both didn’t cost Stuttgart millions in transfer fees. And if amateur scouts (i.e. Stuttgart fans hanging around the training ground) are to be believed, Manuel Fischer will be the next Mario Gomez. Armin Veh has asked the press not to hype the young boy too much, but since I’m not part of the press I would have done so, if it wasn’t for the lack of YouTube highlight videos, which makes blogging about him impossible of course.
3. Huub Stevens receives the perfect parting gift.
Huub Stevens has a fetish for clean sheets and his team gifted him one final clean sheet when they played Karlsruhe at home. With a total of just 26 conceded goals, Hamburg’s defence became the best ever in Hamburg’s Bundesliga history, despite the teams downward spiral in the second half of the season.
HSV fans got something for their money as well: seven goals. Hamburg’s second highest ever Bundesliga win. They managed an 8-0 win over forty years ago, and incidentally they achieved that result against Karlsruhe as well.
4. Generals cry. Titans don’t.
Much to Ray Hudson’s delight, there were lots of “meaningful wonderful heartfelt emotions” on display in the Allianz Arena, when Ottmar Hitzfeld said good-bye to the day-to-day business of league football in exchange for the cosier life as Swiss national team coach. The bar was set and Oliver Kahn was expected to follow suit, when he got substituted in the 87th minute. But Oliver Kahn doesn’t cry. There were rumours that he cried after the Getafe match, but I think they were just that - rumours.
5. Something about Swiss penalty psychology.
As a reference point, German penalty psychology is straight forward: pick your spot, don’t change your mind, score. Alexander Frei revealed that more intricate mechanisms are at work between Swiss players. Frei was awarded a penalty in Dortmund’s match against Wolfsburg and saw his spot kick saved by fellow Swiss #1 goalkeeper Diego Benaglio. Frei had picked his preferred corner, because he knew that Benaglio knew his preferred corner and thus expected that Benaglio would go the other way, because he assumed Benaglio would assume that Frei would choose the other corner, because Benaglio knows Frei’s preferred corner.
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Category: 1. Bundesliga, 1. FC Nuremberg, Arminia Bielefeld, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, FC Bayern Munich, FC Schalke 04, Hamburger SV, Hansa Rostock, Hertha BSC Berlin, Karlsruher SC, Matchday Coverage, VfB Stuttgart, VfL Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen
Tags: 1. Bundesliga, 1. FC Nuremberg, Alexander Frei, Arminia Bielefeld, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, FC Bayern Munich, FC Schalke 04, Hamburger SV, Hansa Rostock, Hertha BSC Berlin, Huub Stevens, Karlsruher SC, Luca Toni, Manuel Fischer, Mario Gomez, Matchday Coverage, Oliver Kahn, Ottmar Hitzfeld, VfB Stuttgart, VfL Wolfsburg, Werder BremenMy Fair Lady: Hertha’s Road to Europe
By: Jan | Add Comments
The old lady Hertha is back in Europe. The club topped the national Fair Play Ranking and will compete in next season’t UEFA Cup as a reward. The Bundesliga Offside recaps the three crucial moments in Hertha’s UEFA Cup spot clinching season.
1. Josip Simunic takes anger management classes.
Hertha’s infamous defender, who usually gets anything from three yellow to plenty of red cards, was forced by his employee to take some anger management classes. The results paid of big time. Hertha didn’t receive a single straight red or yellow-red card during the season.
2. Hertha congratulate Bayern and say good bye to Olli and Ottmar.
And by doing so with a big banner, they made sure the people who award Fair Play points for the category “respect for the opponent”, couldn’t possibly miss it.
3. Hertha bag the remaining Fair Play points in style.
There are additional points to win by “playing positive football”, which they did. Instead of ruining Bayern’s party, they let them play, didn’t get on their nerves, let them score a few goals. That’s a positive approach. Hertha scored more points in the category “respect for the referee”, by making Markus Merk’s last day at work as easy as possible. In return Merk didn’t hand out a single card to Hertha granting the maximum amount of Fair Play points.
As the last impression is the lasting impression, it didn’t matter that Hertha didn’t burn all those Fair Play fireworks in their other games.
Now it’s time for Lulu to end Hertha’s history of being a first round UEFA Cup choker and begin a new chapter as possibly a second round UEFA Cup choker, or even an UEFA Cup group stage choker.
Bundesliga Offside Rewind: Good Byes
By: Jan | Add Comments
Bayern said good bye to Oliver Kahn and Ottmar Hitzfeld, Hamburg said good bye to Huub Stevens and the Bundesliga Offside says good bye to another week of blogging.
- Anna bid farewell to Silvio Meißner. (Stuttgart Offside)
- …and will soon have to do the same for Rapahel Schäfer. (Stuttgart Offside)
- Chris will say good riddance to Raphael van der Vaart soon, but may have to say good bye to Vincent ‘da man’ Kompany as well. (Hamburg Offside)
- Angela won’t have to say good bye to Philipp Lahm. (Bayern Offside)
- Abby says hello to Kaka - who will be able to compete with the other less famous Milan Kaka in next season’s UEFA Cup. (Hertha Offside)
- A busy week for Franck Ribery pt. 1. (Bundesliga Offside)
- A busy week for Franck Ribery pt. 2. (Bayern Offside)
- Bayern in blue - to lure disillusioned 1860 supporters to their club perhaps. (Bayern Offside)
Franck Ribery bids farewell to Oliver Kahn
By: Jan | 4 Comments
I already wondered what had happened to Franck the Prankster, but here he is with his accomplice Daniel van Buyten. The roof of Bayern’s world headquarter + a bucket + Oliver Kahn + a camera filming it = excellent blogging material. I’m sure this will make it all the harder for Ollie to retire.
via: FANartisch
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Weekly Dose 14.05.08
By: Jan | 2 Comments
- I recently joined Angela over at the Germany World Cup Blog to do some Euro 2008 blogging. Daryl suggested we post more often now to build a readership ahead of the tournament. But I’ve already gone through the process with this blog, so why all the hassle again, right? So please head over to the Germany blog and become regular readers there as well. (Germany World Cup Blog)
- In case you planned to say Tim Wiese what you thought of his kung-fu kick against Ivica Olic, try E-Mail or Snailmail. His guestbook on his homepage has been temporarily closed… (Tim Wiese’s Gästebuch)
- Jogi Löw only has measles to fear. (Spiegel Online)
- A pitch invasion in Cologne to celebrate promotion to the Bundesliga. (tannij77’s Flickr)
- Los 10 mejores Goles de la Copa Uefa. Includes goals by Bayern’s Ribery and Altintop, Leverkusen’s Kießling and Bremen’s Zaubermaus Diego. Not bad. (101 Great Goals)
- Los 3 mejores finales de la Copa Uefa. According to Ian Rose and features Leverkusen and Stuttgart. (UEFA Cup Offside)
- The weekly Honigstein. (Guardian sportblog)
- The late Duffmann. (Bundesbag)
- The tri-annual Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger. (ESPN Soccernet)
- Huub Steven’s reveals why Hamburg choked in the second half of the season. (DW Bundesliga Kick Off!)
10 Things we learned from Matchday 33
By: Jan | 8 Comments
1. Rostock and Duisburg return to the second division.
They went from newly-promoted to newly-relegated over the course of one season. Duisburg lost against Bayern at home (2-3), despite staging a semi-remarkable comeback after Lukas Podolski had made it 3-0 after just 20 minutes. Rostock lost against Leverkusen (1-2) in a game which kept Leverkusen’s UEFA Cup hopes alive, and which once again demonstrated Rostock’s lack of at least one prolific striker.
Duisburg will be missed for the great goals they scored. Rostock will be missed by somebody somewhere as well - to be fair Rostock has a big fan base in eastern Germany. And the two deserve credit for sticking to their coaches for a change and admitting that the squads simply lacked the individual quality needed to stay in the Bundesliga.
2. A comedy own-goal keeps Nuremberg alive.
This one has already been covered on our main page.
3. The Bundesliga is the league with the fewest penalties.
Your average Bundesliga referee is giving 0,19 penalties per game according to bundesliga.de. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, especially when you are a Nuremberg supporter. On the other hand, Babak Rafati, who refereed Nuremberg’s match against Hertha, didn’t even manage 0,19 penalties. Out of three clear penalties - two for Nuremberg and one for Hertha - he gave exactly zero.
4. Schalke play like Mirko Slomka’s Schalke minus Mirko Slomka.
Once Kevin Kuranyi’s euphoria of no longer having to keep up with Mirko Slomka was gone, Schalke returned to their old ways, which are admittedly quite successful but lacking in the Joga Bonito department. A 1-0 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt was enough to keep Werder Bremen within reach, who themselves demolished Hanover 6-1.
5. More records tumble.
When Aaron Hunt made it 6-0 for Bremen in the 87th minute of the aforementioned match, he became Bremen’s 20th goalscorer of the season, breaking the previous Bundesliga record set by Bremen two weeks ago. Stuttgart’s Fernando Meira meanwhile saw his third red card of the season to bring his Bundesliga career total up to six. A new VfB Stuttgart record. He’ll need three more red cards to break the Bundesliga record, currently held by Jens Nowotny with 5 straight and 3 yellow-red cards. Next week Bayern could break an age old defensive record held by Werder Bremen (no kidding!), who only conceded 22 goals in one season sometime back in the eighties. Bayern currently conceded only 20 goals, and Hertha will probably be too busy with their Fair Play to score any goals.
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Category: 1. Bundesliga, 1. FC Nuremberg, Arminia Bielefeld, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, Energie Cottbus, FC Bayern Munich, FC Schalke 04, Hamburger SV, Hannover 96, Hansa Rostock, Hertha BSC Berlin, Karlsruher SC, MSV Duisburg, Matchday Coverage, VfB Stuttgart, VfL Bochum, VfL Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen Tags: 1. Bundesliga, 1. FC Nuremberg, Arminia Bielefeld, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, Energie Cottbus, FC Bayern Munich, FC Schalke 04, Hamburger SV, Hannover 96, Hansa Rostock, Hertha BSC Berlin, Karlsruher SC, Matchday Coverage, MSV Duisburg, VfB Stuttgart, VfL Bochum, VfL Wolfsburg, Werder BremenTime for Frankfurt and Berlin to be on their best Behaviour
By: Jan | 3 Comments
The Bundesliga has won an additional UEFA Cup berth, following a draw including the seven fairest and wisest leagues in Europe. Now it’s up to the DFL to decide which team in the Bundesliga honoured the Fair Play ideal the most and thus earns the honour to compete in Europe despite the fact, that they played crap and couldn’t qualify through the league.
Since the season isn’t over yet, they’ll wait until after the season concludes on Saturday. So there is still one game to earn some valuable Fair Play points. The requirements are a bit nebulous and don’t just include the number of red and yellow cards the team receives but aspects like positive play, fan behaviour, behaviour of club officials and stuff like that. Thus it’s a bit difficult to predict which team is actually leading the race. But taking yellow and red cards as a point of reference it would be Hertha BSC Berlin closely followed by Eintracht Frankfurt. Both teams have no longer anything to play for and thus can fully concentrate on their Fair Play duties. Frankfurt host just relegated Ruhr Vally underachievers MSV Duisburg and Berlin travel to Munich.
Will be interesting to follow their games. Expect Hertha to play positive attacking football and get figured out on counter attacks, while doing nothing to stop those attacks so they don’t get any cards. Lucien Favre will hand out bouquets of flowers to Ottmar Hitzfeld, Oliver Kahn and some random people. Hertha fans will buy Munich fans a Weissbier while cheering when Luca Toni makes it 6-0. The wonderful world of the UEFA Fair Play Ranking.
Our resident Hertha blogger Abby could do without the UEFA Cup though, as she fears that the squad lacks depth to compete in Europe and the Bundesliga.
Snapshot: Footballers who look like Hitler
By: Jan | 9 Comments
Here are Borussia Mönchengladbach wunderkind Marko Marin and Canadian striker Rob Friend sporting fake moustaches, in honour of their Dutch coach Jos Luhukay, who likes to wear his facial hair this way and who guided Gladbach back to the Bundesliga.
Bundesliga Offside Rewind: With the Grace and Beauty of Tim Wiese
By: Jan | Add Comments
That’s how we did our blogging this week.
- Anna had a little present for Bayern Munich. (Stuttgart Offside)
- Stuttgart finally get a dedicated football
stadiumarena. (Stuttgart Offside) - Tim Wiese is walking in Toni Schumacher’s shadow. (Bundesliga Offside)
- Scarfs for girls or scarfs for fans? (Bundesliga Offside)
- Kaka and Eto’o could be playing for Berlin next season. (Hertha Offside)
- It took Hamburg’s professional coach scouting task force six months to sign Martin Jol. (Hamburg Offside)
- Angela had written a remarkable, insightful, funny, knowledgeable and witty blog post when suddenly… (Bayern Offside)
The Colour Pink
By: Jan | 6 Comments
Football in Germany has long been savoured as one of the last male refuges. As such anything pink has so far been exclusively reserved for Tim Wiese and his skin tight goalkeeper jerseys. But the times are changing and through the years more and more girls started to wrap their minds around the passive offside rule and began heading to the stadiums. The male fan had to get used to the fact that the drunk and swearing person to his right could now be a woman. The club bosses got used to the fact that a whole new market segment opened up to them, ready to finance their expensive squads. And they updated their fan gear accordingly.
For Eintracht Frankfurt fans their club has now gone one step too far though. In times where their beloved Waldstadion has been completely re-branded to Commerzbank Arena, the name and colours (black, white and red) of the club become ever more valuable in defining its’ identity. And a pink and white scarf doesn’t really fit in here. So Frankfurt fans have now started a “STOP PINK!” campaign. In their words:
By wearing a fan-scarf you identify with your club and with its colours. Which colours do you identify with, when this scarf has the colour pink? In most cases the wearer of this scarf isn’t making his/her mind up about what they are expressing with it.
Pink is not one of Eintracht’s club colours!
So you can throw your support behind this campaign by signing their petition, or you could discuss it here in the comments.
via: 5 Freunde im Abseits
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