Bundesliga 2007/2008: Predictions for a perfect Season

By: Jan | August 10th, 2007

Won’t Happen It’s a big day today. The Bundesliga finally starts into the new season, and after Greg already gave you his fearless predictions for the Superliga, while Sam dubbed his Ligue 1 forecast fail-proof, I decided to tell you how everything will play out in this years Bundesliga season as well. And mind you, after I predicted exactly how the race for the Intertoto Cup spot would end last season, my words should carry some authority.

Although, in reality I usually only predict things that comply with my hopes and wishes, and had all my predictions since childhood come true, this blog would probably be called Das Abseits, to reflect and honour Germany’s five consecutive World Cup titles since 1990, and there would be a special section just for Cologne blogs, since this club would have been at least twice as big and four times as successful as Real Madrid by now.

Who will win the Title?
Apparently it won’t be Bayern Munich, despite the fact that they would deserve it the most, as they will showcase the most beautiful football of all teams. But as some wise man once said, “Football is not a Beauty Contest,” and thus they are bound to choke in the final stages of the league. I pick either Schalke 04, just because it would coincide perfectly with the 50th anniversary of their last title win, or Hamburg. Hamburg for the simple reason that they currently are the strongest team outside of Munich, and I guess they will go all the way unless half their squad gets injured again. And Huub Stevens rules anyway.

Who will play in the Champions League?
Possibly the three teams I mentioned above. Although it will be a tight race with up to six candidates (Stuttgart, Bremen and a surprise team like Dortmund).

Who will play in the UEFA Cup?
As there are already six teams playing for three Champions League spots, there really isn’t any UEFA Cup spot left to any other teams than the ones I mentioned above. Yet, I think that the new season will be so competitive that, different to last season, the top six teams won’t be able to put a lot of points between them and the rest, so the competition for these spots will actually be enormous. And then there is the odd chance, that the one UEFA Cup spot that is usually handed down to the DFB Cup winner becomes available, if the team that wins the cup already qualified for Europe in the league. So I would add the following teams as contenders: Leverkusen, Nuremberg and Hannover 96, while even Wolfsburg, Frankfurt and Berlin will have an outsiders chance. Which also brings me to my next point.

Who will be relegated?
Last year half the league was involved in the relegation avoidance business. This year half the league will hope to get to Europe, so only a small selection of teams will make up a lively bottom of the table. Two favourites to go down sadly are the two only teams from East Germany: Rostock and Cottbus (Berlin doesn’t count). Anyway, I hope one of the two can book tickets for yet another Bundesliga season. Difficult to decide which one though. I got a weak spot for Rostock’s coach Frank Pagelsdorf, who is very emotional and often ends up in tears at several points in the season. He also compensates his stress and frustration through food, so he is also slightly overweight. Cottbus’ coach Petrik Sander is rather wiry compared to him and was recently voted 3rd best coach of the year by sports journalists for keeping Cottbus in the Bundesliga. Despite the fact that he had to rebuild his squad completely after the management sold key players, I still think he can somehow repeat last season’s stunt - so congratulations Cottbus. Then we got VfL Bochum and MSV Duisburg from the so called Ruhr Area, who are favourites to go down as well. Although I hope that Ailton scores a lot of goals bumbum, for Duisburg to save them, so Bochum goes down, also because I don’t care enough about them. Third team to go down is Arminia Bielefeld. I don’t care about them either. I would have loved to give one of these three spots to Wolfsburg, but I fear that Felix Magath and his VW money will be enough to keep them out of trouble.

Who will win the DFB-Pokal?
The DFB Cup is already under way so there is only a decimated number of clubs available any longer. And one of the clubs who was eliminated last weekend was Cologne (frustratingly and embarrassingly against Werder Bremen’s second team, which only plays in the third division). I had hoped they could be up for a surprise, but I was wrong. I’m still recovering emotionally and rather don’t like to talk about the DFB Cup at the moment.

Who will be the first Coach to get sacked?
Rostock’s Frank Pagelsdorf and Bochum’s Marcel Koller on the same day. The bigger surprise though is, that none of them will be replaced by Peter Neururer. But Lothar Matthäus is still looming at the horizon and I hope he will finally give his Bundesliga debut as a coach.

The first coach to quit his job has to be Berlin’s Lucien Favre.

Who will score the most Goals?
I originally wanted to write, that it will be Mario Gomez, but he now won the Player of the Year 2007 award and will be likely to steal Poldi’s place alongside Klose in the national team. Since I believe in spreading out the honours more equally, I now want someone else to take the trophy; like Hamburg’s Zidan or Ailton.

Who will get the most Assists?
Oliver Kahn. He might have been ousted from the national team, because Klinsmann thought that his goalkeeping style, with his reliance on randomly addressed goal-kicks rather than meaningful passes, wasn’t modern enough, but this flaw will come to his advantage now. Bayern has so much quality up top that his goal-kicks are bound to be converted into a goal every now and then.

Who will receive the most cards, bans etc.?
Mark van Bommel. His antics will also be one of the reasons why Bayern won’t win the league, since they need to play with 10 men a little bit too often.

A Name to remember
Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting. I first noticed Hamburg’s 18 year old striker during the match against Dacia Chisinau. At first only for his great four part name, then for the immediate impact he made on the pitch.

How about the Bundesliga’s Performance on the European Level?
How about another frustrating season that sees us get passed by Romania in the UEFA 5-Year Ranking and everybody will feel totally embarrassed? Nah, actually I’m quite optimistic; especially for the UEFA Cup. At least until half of the Bundesliga teams have been prematurely eliminated from the competitions again.

So, what’s your verdict? But be warned: I plan to come back to this post and all its comments next year for a little reality check.;-)