It’s a Shame we’re not in the Champions League

By: Jan | September 20th, 2007

Champions League Reactions Says Luca Toni and says Uli Hoeneß. And it’s probably old habits that make Bayern Munich speak more about the Champions League than the competition they are actually playing in. Though stating that they want to win the UEFA Cup is probably all we need to know about their campaign anyway.

But I guess Uli is also aware of the Catch 22 within his statement. Without Bayern missing out on the Champions League, they probably wouldn’t have changed their transfer policy and it wouldn’t be a shame that they are not in the Champions League. Chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge also announced that they will invest in quality rather than quantity from now on. So while they won’t throw out €70m each year and pretend they are owned by an eccentric oligarch, they still intend to make €20-25m investments per player to punctually strengthen their squad.

Bayern’s competitors in the league are still a few years short of being able to effortlessly invest that much money in new players. Though they will probably generate profits within this range from player sales. VfB Stuttgart was reportedly already offered €25m for Mario Gomez by Juventus and Diego – a bargain for Bremen at €6m – is now on Real Madrid’s shopping list with a similar price tag according to the latest rumours. Both players have also been among the few positives of the Bundesliga’s disappointing Champions League opening matches.

Bremen lost their away match against Real Madrid 2-1 and it was only half as bad as I expected. Bremen were much improved and Real Madrid not as strong as I thought – though still the better team that night. And Diego, “Diego was better than Kaka. On Tuesday night he was Kaka and Wesley Sneijder in one person”, according to Spanish sports daily AS, who also happen to be the ones to break the story about him being Real’s transfer target. All in all I’m not too worried about Werder Bremen at the moment. Their next match is at home against Olympiakos Piräus in two weeks and I hope that both fullbacks, Clemens Fritz and Pierre Wome, will be back in the squad by then. Five weeks from now they will host Lazio Rome, and hopefully both Torsten Frings and Tim Borowski will be back on board as well. Obviously other players could pick up injuries, but I think Bremen already had their share of long term injuries for this year. Who knows, maybe even Carlos Alberto turns out to be any good. With key players back on board, Bremen should be able to claim the second place in this group.

Something that will be far more difficult to achieve for both Schalke and Stuttgart after their disappointing comebacks to the big stage. Schalke lost at home against Valencia 0-1 and have all but themselves to blame. Valencia were well organised defensively but really only had one chance and Manuel Neuer’s support to score the winning goal. Schalke struggled to break through Valencia’s defence but still came up with four good chances, of which not a single one found the back of the net, and Canizares was actually blundering far beyond that one mistake Neuer made. At least that’s good news for Timo Hildebrand I guess. Anyway, pretty much sums up why Schalke drew their last three matches in the Bundesliga 1-1. They simply need way too many chances to score their goals.

VfB Stuttgart on the other hand can still rely on Mario Gomez to turn half a chance into a goal, but that didn’t stop the Swabians from unnecessarily giving it all away at Ibrox yesterday. They were pretty much in control of the match for the first 60 minutes, and even made it look like playing a home match during short periods in the first half. Yet, once Stuttgart took the lead, they also completely lost control of the match and fifteen minutes later the score was 2-1 for the Rangers translating into vital three points for them. Stuttgart now have to take those points away from someone else, like Lyon or Barcelona. Armin Veh should probably give Thomas Schaaf a call and ask him how Bremen held Barcelona to a draw or better almost beat them last year. And while at it, Schaaf could just as well send Mirko Slomka the recipe for beating Chelsea at home as well. Things would look less grim then.

Today, the UEFA Cup bound Bundesliga clubs can still make up for the disappointing Champions League results. Hamburg already did their part by beating Lovech on Tuesday. And realistically we should expect a victory by Bayern Munich at home against Belenenses Lissabon and hopefully a victory by Leverkusen at home against Leira as well. Nuremberg seems to be a bit of an underdog against Bucarest and their recent Bundesliga form wasn’t too impressive either. But maybe they can pull off a surprise result.